6/26/13

BATMAN/SUPERMAN #1 — I was really looking forward to Pak/Lee’s take on the World’s Finest and this initial installment does not disappointment. Lee sprints past his regimented OZYMANDIAS layout structure, managing to seem both energized though still focused and restrained. Pak holds on to that blue/gray alternating narrative caption between the two leads bit that Loeb just immediately ran into the ground at the top of the last volume of this team-up, but the thing is, Pak manages to dial back the precious juxtaposition, doing a pretty fair job of channeling that first-person present-tense Bruce Wayne voice that Miller codified back in ’86 and ’87 in his two all-time classics. This “first encounter” manages to entertain even though we’ve all seen permutations of it several times before. I am particularly intrigued by the twist at the end. I do think it was a little bit weird to have Ben Oliver draw that section. I guess it was a deliberate choice? Because surely you wouldn’t be having a fill-in on a first issue. Possibly a stylistic decision, and no slight against Mr. Oliver, but it comes across as a strange call to have Jae Lee only drawing three-quarters of a first issue where his marquee name was arguably a bigger draw than the writer’s. Still, a solid beginning, looking forward to subsequent issues.

FLASH #21 — What could have been a fill-in crossover of heroes running the old misunderstanding/fisticuffs trope into the ground manages to be entertaining on its own merits with the art doing most of the heavy lifting. It is hard to conjure an artistic team who could do a better job of drawing an issue’s worth of two Flashes running around the world. The body language continues to be some of the most dynamic and energetic in the business and the layouts flow so beautifully, guiding the eye across the page with just the right amount of urgency and velocity that this title demands. And even an “impulsive” gag in Barry’s narration, groan.

THE WAKE #2 — All right, I jammed PUNK ROCK JESUS in between this and #1 so, as much respect as I had for Sean Murphy from JOE THE BARBARIAN and the AMERICAN VAMPIRE mini, have a whole newfound appreciation for the scope of his talent after seeing a couple hundred pages of his finished work in only black and white. All of which to say, jumping back in here with Matt Hollingsworth coloring it up to perfection is quite the heady experience. So, these guys are doing nothing but knocking it out of the park in the art department, but then Snyder again turns in pretty much a flawless script, we get just enough explanation/exposition that answers questions we have while generating new ones, a dab of characterization that is natural but not forced, and then serious escalation on the last pages, certainly in the present tense but then out-of-control hijinks there in the flash-forward. What is going on? How can that possibly tie in with our main narrative? If these boys keep it up, and I have to reason to doubt that they will, this mini-series is going to be one for the ages.

THE UNWRITTEN #50 — Man, I feel kind of terrible writing this, but Carey drops in and flat writes the pants off of Bill Willingham in this crossover, as solid as FABLES has been lately, this issue blows away what’s been going on over there for me. I mean, just grabbing that tone and running away with it. The bit about Ozma refusing to do the exposition part of the spell is really clever stuff. And I love the whole set-up/payoff with Tom showing up, everyone’s immediately thinking there’s no way that the spell worked. It was pretty nuts to see the current situation of both Snow and Bigby. I presume the continuity of all that will be made clear. I had completely written him off in the other title, crazier things have happened over there. I do wonder if there’s anyone at all who reads this and doesn’t pick up FABLES, they must be terribly terribly overwhelmed at this point. Same deal goes the other way, FABLES folks who don’t regularly pick this up would be well advised to begin doing so, seems like some fairly essential business going down right away. I had a great feeling about this arc/crossover when they first announced it a few months ago, but this is much better than I dared hope.

PROPHET #36 — This is haaaaard science fiction, man. As if it wasn’t already, but seems like they found a way to crank it up, even now this far in. There isn’t even room for credits, you get the last names on the front cover and then on the inside-front cover, there’s the first page. Newfather vs Big John TO THE DEATH! The wild and improbable thing about this series continues to be the way in which the creators have made Diehard such a compelling character, one of the most subversive pieces of character work that I can think of lately, given the character’s initial incarnation. And that line about him just being tools that think he’s a man followed by the aside that he’s not even the only Diehard unit still functioning, just flattening business. Sometimes, I have to take pictures of what I’m reading and send them to my friends in the middle of the night. And naturally, he and first John first travelled with 108 other crewmembers, just nonsense. I wonder if these guys have an endgame in mind or are just burning bright as hard as they can for as long as possible. This book continues to be one of the very best of the month every single time out.

JUPITER’S LEGACY #2 — Another solid installment. Quitely’s art remains the star of the show and Millar does fine work letting the story tell itself and not get drenched in his own kick-ass sensibility. We’re getting to the betrayal/assassination angle a bit quicker than I expected. And the girl’s cousin has got to really be the father, right? It seemed pretty obvious from the first page that he walked in, not even counting that that would be so Millar. Really digging getting Quitely on interiors again, just hoping that it’s not going to hold up MULTIVERSITY anymore.

MORNING GLORIES #28 — I got the Irving cover! It’s a freakshow, how much more insane this book is nowthan it was just a few months ago. It continues to crack me up, the fact that it takes a full three pages of backmatter to even begin to piece together for the poor beleaguered fan what the hell is even happening here. And I’ve been trying, but man, we need it. All those callbacks to #13, I would love to know the percentage of readers who picked up what was going on there the first time through. I bet it’s in single-digits. Spencer & Eisma continue to deliver a hypercubic ton of entertainment across space and time starring an ensemble that keeps expanding at every opportunity, with multiple versions of characters dropping in at will, sometimes in disguise as people we’ve already seen. A hell of a lot to keep track of and a very rewarding experience for those willing to make the effort.

LAZARUS #1 — This left me a bit cold. I’ve been looking forward to this since it was first announced and Lark completely delivers on the art, colors the whole thing, even, but I did not find much of a hook on the narrative or character level. From the first page on, all of that medical language completely killed the momentum out of the gate, really think no captions alone would have done much better rather than dropping a gang of medical jargon on us. And the premise is interesting enough but there wasn’t one thing to draw me in and make me in any way care about Forever Carlyle as a person or protagonist. I suspect that it will become more intriguing as we go along but this is one strong Rucka woman I don’t mind waiting to check back up on in a few months or years when the trades are cheap. That art, though, man, spectacular.

THE MASSIVE #13 — Viva America! Good to get Garry Brown back on interiors. Storywise, it was interesting to check in on the old homefront, but this installment was not meaty enough to make me feel good about picking this title up in singles, particularly on such an insanely crowded week.

FATALE #15 — Oh dear, not another prologue. These things never end well for poor Nick. Though he actually came out of this one relatively unscathed. And but the main narrative, this is about a bank robber in a band called Amsterdam whose single hit is a PKD reference. Okay, I’m in. And then Jess Nevins on Aleister Crowley. Brubaker is very good at soliciting backmatter that consistently challenges his feature presentation’s superiority.

BEST OF THE WEEK: PIZZA DOG #11 — Goddamn. It really didn’t seem like this book had any room to get better. And then they go and nuke us with the Pizza Dog issue. As soon as I heard about it, I was expecting serious greatness, but this is above and beyond the call. With this issue, I realized that Fraction/Aja/Hollingsworth have probably already entered into the pantheon of all-time great creative teams on the level of Lee/Kirby, Moore/Gibbons, Morrison/Quitely, everydamnbody who worked on 100 BULLETS, etc. I mean, they were of course already there, but the sheer genius inherent in every beat and understood and not understood word and scent-graphic really codifies the situation to dramatic effect. Aja has always been a force, but the escalation here is really something to experience. And it’s not just clever olfactory graphic shenanigans in the vein of Chris Ware, that one page where Lucky sees the female walk by and then falls in love, gets his heart broken, and then mended within a five-panel stretch is timeless cartooning for the ages. It is also a terrific narrative conceit to take us back through events from the series that we’ve already experienced via normal point-of-view but now re-experienced through the dog’s senses, only to careen the narrative forward at the end to business that’s going down for reasons we can only guess at, but that is all the more exciting and engaging due to the confused way in which we first experience the events. Just when we got comfortable filtering this story through the perspective of a dog. Really brilliant work on all fronts, celebrating the medium while pushing it forward, all that good stuff.

DAREDEVIL #027 — Now, that was just a hell of a climax. Can’t imagine what Waid has cued up for an encore, I mean, really, everything since #1 has led to this. But that’s why he gets paid top dollar! If this volume ended on this issue, it would certainly stand as one of the best runs that so many talented creators have contributed to this character over the years. Though one that certainly made the transition from the light and fun version Waid made such an issue of in interviews to the typical macabre fare we associate with Matt Murdock and all of the individuals unfortunate enough to be counted among his loved ones. So, this was apparently a sustained two-year opening salvo. We’ll see what happens next. Congratulations to Brother Samnee on his new arrival, he certainly deserves a break. Looking forward to seeing what Rodriguez does all on his own next time out.

FF #008 — Man, the colors on that page when Darla slams her Thing rings together, just out of this world. This book is big and loud and poptastic and revels in its own glory. The “You look great, Tong” page is also a real winner. This is nothing more or less than the greatness to which we’ve become accustomed from this creative team, great fun throughout. It looks like the Allreds have even managed to slam out another twenty pages to be released in three weeks, I tell you, this production schedule is insane.

YOUNG AVENGERS #006 — There was certainly cause for concern when the inevitable fill-in kicked in for McKelvie/Norton (and even Wilson, yikes), but Kate Brown really shows up. I want to say she was helping Paul Duffield make deadlines in the back two-thirds of FREAKANGELS maybe, there? I miss those six-page Warren clusterbombs on Fridays. Brown even pulls off one of those insane technical things that I guess Gillen is always asking for, something like thirty panels on two pages of super-speed assembly action. What starts out as a charming little character piece featuring someone we know and someone we’ve just met turns into a bit of horror that definitely has me wondering how it’s all going to go down next month. Really hope Kate Brown hangs around on tag-team art chores, terrific work, especially the light on those last pages, there.

X-MEN #002 — That cover is gorgeous. And heightens my knee-jerk suspicion that Frank Martin is the man who married Laura, could it be true? This issue lives up to the out-of-the-gate thunder we had last issue, all of the character interactions feel just right and of course the mansion gets trashed again, so check and check, another successful merry mutant outing. A weird thing Sublime tells Jubilee about the baby though, “We leave a new person behind,” when they take over host bodies, meaning the kid’s original personality was absorbed/destroyed and now a “reset button” has been hit and this is basically now a new person? That’s weird, right? Amazing following page of Jubilee and the kid looking into one another’s eyes, Coipel’s lines are, of course, amazing but Martin’s tones really really sell the moment.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #013 — This remains one of the best-looking books on the stands. And Bendis certainly knows what to do the instant he throws teenage Jean in with Lady Mastermind, how could anything else have happened? I also love this issue’s reveal behind the subplot with Mystique stockpiling these insane reserves of cash. Bendis is carefully throwing in some big and sweeping ideas, but never at the cost of character moments. Or extended conversations, natch. It is hilarious that they reprint Havok, I mean Alex’s speech from UNCANNY AVENGERS #005 at the end of this book.

UNCANNY X-MEN #007 — The whole “gang lost in Limbo” arc comes to an end, so I presume we’ll now be saying goodbye to Frazer Irving, who completely knocked this one out of the park slinging full duties on art. Of course, Bendis being Bendis, the entire issue is relayed in the form of exposition, though there’s a nice little kicker at the end that makes the whole affair worthwhile and not just the ninety-ninth time he’s pulled that one out (but I mean seriously though, has anyone in the history of the medium ever been so in love with the rat-a-tat-tat of two people in dialogue with one another? Far too much Mamet consumed at an impressionable age, I’ve no doubt). I am a fan of letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna’s decision to, at least on that initial spread, just do all the talking in one little column and leave the rest of the two pages undisturbed so that we can fully appreciate Irving’s infernal Mindless One madness. I wasn’t sure if this series was going to have enough weight to sustain my interest independent of the title it spun out from, but so far so good. I just can’t wait until this whole $3.99 experiment ends and these babies are available for three bucks a pop again.