Friday, September 26, 2014

9/3/14

ACTION COMICS: FUTURE’S END #1 — Well, this was really a very strange call. For four months, they’ve had that weird deal going on in the main FUTURE’S END series where Superman was wearing a helmet and we couldn’t see his face and he was acting a bit unlike himself, then last week, they dropped the big KINGDOM COME reveal that it was really Billy Batson all along, which of course begged the immediate question, “So, where’s the big guy?” Cue the perfect timing for this issue to come out. Well done, Editorial. So, for your next trick? A fill-in issue. In every sense of the word. Now, I dug Sholly Fisch’s back-ups in this title during the Morrison run. They had a lot of heart and served as compelling contrast to the madness that was going on in the headlining story. But the big idea for this issue that’s supposed to be showing what the greatest superhero of all time is doing with himself five years later is to introduce a group of new characters and show what they do when temporarily gifted with Superman’s powers. This isn’t ASTRO CITY. I can maybe see giving this story a pass if it was the SUPERMAN title and we’d already gotten the serious business from this flagship offering, but as the first issue of this latest month-long event, this is incredibly limp. A few pages of our guy being bearded and trying to solve famine in Africa. Like he does. Pretty disappointing.

DETECTIVE COMICS: FUTURE’S END #1 — This one’s a bit better. Of course, we’ve got to go with Calendar Man for a flash-forward antagonist. Amazing Infantino homage cover from Fabok. Riddler makes for an interesting foil. The change in art halfway through is not as jarring as it might otherwise be, falling where it does right when they make it into Arkham. I saw the twist at the end coming but was hoping that’s not how it would go. It feels a little too close to that “I don’t have to save you,” nonsense Goyer had Bale drop at the end of the first Nolan flick. I feel like I might not have dug this that much on any given day but coming after ACTION, was just grateful that Batman was even a lead character in his own series.

BEST OF WEEK: GRAYSON: FUTURE’S END #1 — And then there’s this. Wow. I am ignorant of Tom King, but he absolutely blew it up. This one runs a MEMENTO-style backwards chronology that has Helena hanging Dick in a noose on the first page and him appearing to die before we flashback to an EARLIER . . . on the following page. However, unlike that overused trope where we just open with some crazy thing and then build up to it, this issue never ever changes direction, just keeps going further and further back every single page with each scene providing new context and informing everything that we’ve already read. It is a hell of a trick to pull off just right there on its own, but then they bring the Cluemaster’s code into it. I loved the hell out of this thing before I figured out how entirely badass the first page is. The art from Stephen Mooney is serviceable, nothing that blew me away, but it does its job. This script, however, is so razor-sharp that it will cut you. One of the better single issues starring Dick Grayson that I have ever read and certainly the horse to beat this month in all the other FUTURE’S END titles.

FUTURE’S END #18 — Old Jeanty sure has some flat composition angles. I mean, I’m not sure that I could do better but it just seems like lazy camera placement. That three-panel beat with Constantine hitting the flask is where it really jumped out at me. Or failed to, ha. But that’s all right because BARDA ON THE ISLAND! I love how ARROW’s mythology is so badass, it’s invaded the comics and now Diggle is a real deal. How has Felicity not shown up yet?

BATMAN ETERNAL #22 — Mmmm, this isn’t offensive, Jorge Lucas is terrific on art, but I just don’t care about Hush. I want to give these guys the chance to remedy that, but it hasn’t happened yet. This series is a strange duck, very much with the ebb and flow, capable of hitting and missing multiple times in the same month. It’s batting about 50/50 for me at this point, here’s hoping that ratio improves.

GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS #1 — Ryan Browne is obviously fucking mental. A very talented fellow, clearly, but no one you want to be alone in a room with. In the first four pages of this alone, we are introduced to Admiral Tiger Eating A Cheeseburger and his first mate, Mr. Crabtree, before they are killed when their crab spaceship gets hit by a rocket full of astro-farmers, then we are exposed to only the horrifying beginning of the expository origin of Lord Astro-Farmer who meets his one true love in the form of a chicken called Hennifer at a farmer’s market. He promptly buys his one true love and takes her home to have sex with her. That’s the first four pages. Terrific art. But fucking mental.

SOUTHERN BASTARDS #4 — Wow. Talk about not padding out your story. The Jasons bring the first arc of this angry beast to a close and it is a fearsome thing with a one-two narrative punch at the end that can only be described as jaw-dropping. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the ride thus far, just digging the tone and pacing of the narrative, but now these boys done flipped over all the tables and’re running rampaging hell, smashing the room all up with these bats they don’t seem to know how to stop swinging. Aaron and Latour already have a deep chemistry feedback-looping between them, to the point that you really have to work to even parse who’s doing what as far as the craft that goes into a particular issue, it’s so hard not to just fall all the way in. This is a damn fine way to end a first arc, and anyone reading these words who cares about supporting independent comics or loved SCALPED and hasn’t already checked this out would be a damn fool not to throw down $9.99 for that first trade the first chance they get. Amen.

ORIGINAL SIN #8 — Well, it all came down. As soon as the issue began, I felt like an asshole for not seeing the final twist coming from a mile away. This one isn’t a perfect tapestry for me, I still don’t get Uatu’s motivation in the first place. It’s not enough that he saw something coming and so brought it into being, that’s just lazy writing, but I feel like I should credit Aaron for putting something in here that’s getting by me, so far. All of the action scenes and resolution are staged very well, of course Deodato/Martin continue to kill it on sequentials. The Thor thing is totally dropped in, I feel like I can see the stitching on that way too easily. Really really wish they wouldn’t have announced that ahead of time, no reason they couldn’t have waited until now to do it and actually had a bit of a surprising moment for those of us who are good enough to still be picking up these things. I do love the choice of Fury’s replacement, that’s perfect, and am glad that the announcement of at least that series didn’t spoil the surprise for at least me. That one is going to be The Business, I am sure.

UNCANNY X-MEN #25 — I really dig Bachalo’s cover. It’s got that photographic quality to it that hearkens back to the glory days when Sienkiewicz did those fourteen issues of NEW MUTANTS. This is another solid single from X-Bendis, right here. I was giving him a bit of The Business last issue about still introducing new mutants, but he’s certainly putting enough into this Matthew Malloy backstory to give the whole thing enough weight and high stakes. Most of this issue is exposition, recorded Xavier telling the story (it is Bendis, after all; why show when you can have someone tell you the story in crackling BendisMamet-speak?), which is entertaining enough throughout, but Bendis wisely has Scott call for a mid-issue timeout so that we can get a break and have some actual present-tense interaction between the mutants. Which is, of course, all that any of us really want from these folks, mutants just sitting around being family and shit, and this pretty much makes the issue. Really just the page of Kitty and Kurt reuniting. Really just that one panel when they call each other “Katya” and “Elf.” That simple interaction sends all those years tumbling down and makes me feel exactly like an eleven-year-old falling into this world for the first time, wishing so badly that I could have a mutant power and be hated and feared by a world that doesn’t understand me and have to go live at 1407 Greymalkin Lane where I’d be sure to meet the best friends and greatest loves of my life.


MIRACLEMAN #10 — Well, hell, still haven’t made it happen. Ha! Allllllll these years waiting and now I can’t just sit down and read up to this point. Soon!

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