9/25/13

FIRST BORN #23.2 — Aaahh, you could swear those oracle girls were in 100 BULLETS. Too bad they couldn’t rope in Risso for the single-month hit with his old partner. Of course, Azzarello nails the voice for the prophecy, the girls speaking in street-lingo. He’s always been so great at that. Probably it’s just because WONDER WOMAN is regularly one of the best books of The New 52, but more than any other title I read this Villain’s Month, this issue did more heavy lifting to expand the back-story and provide new insight into its given protagonist’s motivations while simultaneously advancing the overall narrative of the main title and whetting the reader’s appetite for what happens next. Fine work, all around.

BANE #23.4 — Very cool to get Graham Nolan in the mix on this one, the most spot-on creative assignment I saw from DC this month. Break the Rivera! Surprising no one, Tomasi hits a unified tone on characterization throughout. “Touch me again and YOU will die.” It is never a good sign when the interim warden at Arkham is straight-up quoting Dante Hicks. I hope Kevin Smith read that. Just like last week, I don’t care one little bit about the mini-series that this leads into, but this was a well-crafted done-in-one.

THE WAKE #4 — And the hits just don’t stop coming, this might be the best art on this series yet. I have to say that this is a pretty bleak situation, though, plot-wise. I really don’t see how this ever-diminishing crew of survivors has four more issues left in them. Snyder, as ever, is a deft hand at balancing character moments with all of the screaming horror crashing in on all sides. This remains one of the best books on the rack and will surely go down with TRILLIUM as the two best mini-series of the year.

THE UNWRITTEN #53 — These guys continue to throw down one of the best FABLES arcs in recent memory that just happens to involve Tommy Taylor and his friends. Oh, but all anyone wants to do is talk about story this, story that, I’m pretty much looking for some Gaiman ex Machina to amble in, blink his sleepy eyes, and make it all better. “Words MATTER, Mr. Pullman!” Again, though, the question of FABLES continuity rears its ugly head. This has got to be like a parallel situation going on, right? It doesn’t seem like some of the momentous events happening in this arc are really going to count in the main title. And of course, I’m wild for all that krackle on the last page, there. As if I even had to tell you.

JUPITER’S LEGACY #3 — So damn good to get Quitely on interiors. We must never take such things for granted. This is some grade-A evil-ass Millar shit right here, though, man. Garth Ennis taught that boy how to hate thum superherahs! It looks like these first three issues were just the pilot episode set-up, we’re now off on the premise implied by the title. Of course, Millar’s got to spoil next issue’s time-jump in the editorial page. Beautiful damn art, though, kudos to Peter Doherty for hanging with the greatness all around, colors, letters, and design.

SAGA #14 — Okay, that panel with Oswald D. Heist immediately sussing to the fact that they GOT his novel was a pretty cool moment. Hahah, and then Alana follows it up two panels later with a double “literally” that I don’t think actually qualifies as abuse of the proper usage but, man, just so sick of that word now. This one moves things along well enough. I’m still digging more on The Will/Gwendolyn/Sophie unit than our main characters, though Heist and Granny’s sit-down resonated pretty well for me.

BEST OF WEEK: SEX CRIMINALS #1 — I fell immediately and right in love with this to an arguably terrible extent, pretty much red-line all the way to how I felt about the first issues of CASANOVA or THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, which, let’s all first just pause and breathe out that the stranglehold tyranny of Gabriel Ba has at last come to a once-and-for-all end, I mean, that guy. But the first-person voice of this, Fraction ratchets all the dials up and delivers so hard. I take back every single shred of my bitching about him bailing out on the double-FF run. If the choice is he either finish those out all the way or that now we get SATELLITE SAM and this concurrently, it’s not even a question. From the first page, which happens to be located on the inside cover, this is an engaging, challenging, and exhilarating piece of work so wholly original that it reinvigorates and reminds me why I show up every Wednesday ten times before the book is halfway done. This is the first time that I can see Fraction’s oft-professed love for Los Bros Hernandez not only actualized but blooming into something uniquely beautiful unto itself. Zdarsky’s art is both stunning and perfectly suited to the task at hand. I feel like I should make some kind of Andy Kaufman joke now about him, just because that’s how he apparently rolls and I love him for it, but maybe that’s what took me most by surprise about this, I only know the guy from like that horrific re-lettering deal he did on the 1986 Spider-Man/Power Pack child-safety/molestation ad and the campaign for Toronto mayor, so when I heard this was the team, I kind of just expected some of the pages to be drawn in feces? Maybe a Jackson Pollock sort of glory? All in context, but this tight kind of Team Phonogram McKelvie/Wilson thing really took me by surprise and totally seduced me into a sex criminal lifestyle of my own. If they would only have me! But, seriously, folks. This is one to lay down before your significant other, your parents, your boss at work who has trouble making eye contact, this is the bridge that must be built between the mainstream consumer of Joss Whedon’s MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS and the funny book in your hand, a modern-day twenty-first teen century’s SANDMAN or Y THE LAST MAN, if you will. Just so poignant a voice you ache for it, is mainly what I’ve been trying to say. Oh, and the time-stopping orgasms. Buy this book and you, too, can have one.

EAST OF WEST #6 — All right, this is a new character I can get behind. Of course, I am a sucker for a science-fiction Ranger. Nick Dragotta improbably manages to ratchet the art up a few levels past what we’ve seen thus far, a pretty serious escape scene, here. Cool, too, to see an entire issue carried along without the strength of our two strongest characters thus far, Death & Xiaolian. The emphasis on the dialogue communicated through italicizing is really getting under my skin, though, I have to say, don’t know if it’s Hickman or Rus Wooton’s idea but I wish whoever it is would knock it off and respect me enough to let the stressed phrases fall naturally, that business really takes me out of the story and it’s happening all over the place, multiple times per page.

FATALE #17 — As a child of the nineties, I am still digging hard on this hard-rockin’ bank-robbin’ arc. That Jane/Jo is bad news, there is certainly no getting around that. Not much more to say than that, this team continues to absolutely crush it, Brubaker/Phillips’s hundred-odd issues together really show and Mrs. Breitweiser’s tones continue to provide a perfect complement to the entire affair. I was positive that Brubaker was going to be talking about Walter White on the editorial page but pleasantly surprised that his only other recommendation was PACIFIC RIM. That’s the first time I’ve batted 1.000 since he started passing out suggested material.

FF #12  — Well all right, to the surprise of no one, it turns out to be much better to welcome another Allred into the fold than some random guy from Portland. The Doom dialogue, in particular, is spot-on. And who can resist Adolf the Impossible Boy’s falling in love with old FF issues? Though why Mik (or Korr??) didn’t dig as far back as Kirby is certainly beyond me. The one serious bump here is the deal with Darla and Scott’s kiss getting interrupted because she spilled coffee on his leg. Of course that would freak a fella out, she has no business getting upset about that. A strange terribly ill-conceived little bit that didn’t make any sense to me at all.  The page of Adolf & Luna watching shojo anime was pretty great.

WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #36 — Well, it’s looking like this crossover should have just been confined to the Bendis titles. I’m a huge fan of this series but read it in trade, so I’m not quite caught up yet. That is not a problem, as the contents of this issue are a direct continuation of the story so far and the only thing that distinguishes this particular chapter is a single-panel gag with Broo. But the script and art are not up to the lofty heights that Bendis and his collaborators have set on past chapters. Giuseppe Camuncoli is a perfectly serviceable artist but the dynamic composition and finely rendered detail and linework isn’t even close to what we’ve seen thus far. And the colors aren’t even close. And this script is nowhere as good as everything else I’ve read in previous issues this title. Let Jason Aaron write his book and tell his story, and let Bendis drop his bombs over on his other books four times a month. At least this title stands to get a sales bump from the crossover, I guess is the silver lining.

UNCANNY AVENGERS #012 — Remender welcomes Sal Larocca to the fold as the business continues to unfold with the Apocalypse twins. Between the multi-front madness unfolding in INFINITY and the BATTLE OF THE ATOM, maybe I’m just suffering from 616 epic event overload, but this arc isn’t crushing me quite as badly as it was a few months ago. Solidly constructed, just not blowing me away. Good for poor old pacifist Simon, though, it’s nice to see someone finally catch a break.

YOUNG AVENGERS #10 — That is one grisly opening. Mother devoured our narrative caption and implicitly our narrator! None are safe. We take a break from the ensemble at large this issue and divide the issue into Loki vs Mother in a game of questions that reveals little but just enough and then Leah takes Teddy to a magic circle of crazy stalkers who have been wronged by our Young Avengers. McKelvie/Norton/Wilson’s art remains beautiful but content-wise, this issue is kind of spinning its wheels a bit, relative to what we’ve come to expect from this title.

AVENGERS #20 — The cosmic madness continues to unfold! The rack Yu saddles Natasha with on Page Four of actual new content is ridiculous and too much by half, any superspy worth her salt would absolutely have to get that business reduced in order to be in any way effective in combat, zero-gravity or otherwise. Okay, and ha, Mentor’s “IF YOU WISH IT” is totally that same italicized Hickman emphasis thing that happens in EAST OF WEST and THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS but goes down just fine the single time here. I don’t recall seeing David Curiel’s name before now, but his digital coloring really pops, particularly on the female faces and that one page of Ex Nihilo and Abyss soaring through all the celestial swirl. It looks like we’re about halfway through this event and Hickman has managed to maintain the entertainment level thus far, interested to see what he’ll do to escalate the situation here in the second half.