12/24/14

ROBIN RISES: ALPHA #1 — The whole way they handled this confuses me. I get wanting to involve Kubert if we all just put that abortion SON OF BATMAN thing out of our minds and oh my God, I’m so sorry for even bringing it up, but it feels a little weird for ANYthing that’s a big deal with Damian at this point to be happening anywhere but in BATMAN AND ROBIN under the pristine stewardship of Gleason/Gray/Kalisz. Still, okay, Kubert. It’s Christmas Eve. Let’s check this out:

Well, huh. The first eleven pages appear to be a redux of the last scene of last week’s stellar BATMAN AND ROBIN #37. There are like three pages in there of what Alfred was doing before they all came back to the cave, but it no shit takes us eleven pages through this $5 comic book to arrive at the exact same cliffhanger where they left us last week. And Kubert redraws The Hug. And it’s nowhere near as good (how could it be?). I mean, it’s fine on its own, but it’s really strange to revisit this entire scene. If you skipped #37 and just picked this up, you’re an idiot and deserve to be on your own. They should structure this for the people who actually bother to show up for everything. And then the resolution to the cliffhanger is . . . Bruce is okay. That’s it. He passes out, Alfred takes his pulse, there are a couple of beats and then on the next page, Bruce is just okay. No explanation. All right, that’s fine, we’ll let it slide, here comes Kalibak. Terrific fight scene. Among other stellar moments, Jason Todd hits dude with a flamethrower while yelling, “BURN, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I really do think that’s wonderful. Oh, but Damian’s got superpowers! What an incredible moment this would have been! If they hadn’t spoiled this fact all over the Internet three months ago. Or not run that terrific two-page splash at the back of Every Single DC Book last week. Who makes these decisions? Does the sales increase offset the frustration over spoilage for folks who are already all in? I guess it must.

To Tomasi’s credit, of course he lands the aftermath with the perfection to which we’ve grown accustomed. Tim, Barbara, and Jason handing over their R-insignias to Damian, who responds with his trademark “tt” is only trumped by the devastation of the newly resurrected little fella calling Alfred by his first name. I’m not kidding. That was fucking HUGE. And we do certainly have a very interesting dynamic for our duo going forward. The last page is perfect. Overall, this special fumbled the ball a lot more than it did things right and was a really disconcerting read after last week’s perfection, but I’m confident that #38 of the main series will once again be one of the very best reads of the month.

AVENGERS·X-MEN: AXIS #9 — And so, that’s that. Every time they get me. I say I’m probably not going to buy the next crossover but then they line up some enticing writer/artist combo who I’ve got to at least check out, and the first issue is solid enough, and then momentum builds in the middle, and then the last issue is always all, “Problem resolved, check out these three to five new books, coming next week from Marvel!” I mean, the last three pages of this thing are a montage of What’s Coming Next from Marvel narrated by captions from the diary of a still-benevolent Sabretooth who might or might not be writing a love letter to Logan, who Editorial recently killed elsewhere. That might read like a bit of a spoiler here after the fact, but I promise you, it was kind of a spoiler for me when it was happening the first time. A limp ending and nowhere near worthy of all the momentum that Remender had built up over two years in UNCANNY AVENGERS.

FUTURES END #34 — Santa Claus’s annual visit cannot stop the DC weeklies! It’s always a pleasure to get Zircher back on interiors. It seems like Madison would be a slightly quicker study while fighting for her/their lives. I can’t believe that the writers are actually making Fifty-Sue a sympathetic character, but it’s working so far. And I don’t care too much about that new version of Plastique but certainly wouldn’t wish the specter of that last page on anybody, oh no.

BATMAN ETERNAL #38 — I was more of a fan of Mutti’s lines this week out. Am also still digging the newly unfolding dynamic between Batman and Penny-Two. And credit where credit is due, the ad folks almost always find a way to fuck up the story flow as much as possible, but following up Gordon’s assertion on the bottom of Page Five that he still believes in Gotham with that Penguin ad for the show Monday nights on Fox is golden. Scarecrow’s cabal certainly did not last a long time. My actual name is Roy, so I couldn’t help but find that LE ROI EST MORT sentiment scrawled in Bane’s blood a bit unsettling. Selina as The Boss is working for me.

BLACK SCIENCE #11 — Okay, this book is basically batshit insane. That’s the long and short of it, no more calls, we have a winner. It’s quite an ambitious set-up with a weighty premise that legitimately took this entire first year to completely unpack, and I have to say that going back through the whole run in a single go will only enhance my appreciation and understanding of it. How many Grant McKays will die before Remender is satisfied? It is a shame to lose Dean White, whose work on colors has been so key to enhancing Scalera’s cascading catastrophic lines throughout, but I’m sure they’ll have a more-than-capable permanent replacement lined up. Fans of parallel-universe-hopping indie science fiction need look no further than this glorious madness!

DAREDEVIL #011 — Waid is just a beast. He is a shining example of how to keep an ongoing superhero serial compelling and engaging, month after month and year after year. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that collaborators Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson are also firing at the top of their game. This book has never been hurting, but the move to SF and this new sub-plot about Matt’s memoirs has breathed new life into this whole deal. It is great fun to watch Matt try to come to terms with this issue’s plot about an irreverent stuntman who’s appropriating any and all identities and taglines. Easily one of the most consistently high-performing books on the rack.

ALL-NEW X-MEN ANNUAL #1 — Pretty devastating work, here. I certainly enjoyed the first part of this story, but Bendis really lands this concluding installment to tremendous effect. Terrific work laying the groundwork for a still relatively new character. And, of course, Andrea Sorrentino continues to tear it up throughout. I was a big fan of those double-page splashes of Eva advancing through time. A cool trick how they hit actual publication dates, so that the original Human Torch was actually in 1944, Galactus was standing amidst the requisite Kirby Krackle in 1966, and then Secret Invasion was right there to be found in 2008. That last one was almost as pivotal of an event in the Marvel Universe, Bendis, you’re right, old friend! But all that struggle, finally making it back to 2099 only to encounter Doctor Anthony Stark quoting Obi-Wan Kenobi inevitably led to a gut-wrenching last page that actually got me choked up. Really amazing character work to be found here. It’s a great feeling to be this invested in a new mutant after all of these years.

UNCANNY X-MEN #029 — Man, Bendis has ratcheted up the stakes on this one considerably! Every scene of this one is great fun all by itself, but they really build momentum as the issue goes along. You’ve got to love Illyana busting in on Strange & Clea in the past to get some help for the current crisis, and then that is a nice counterpoint to Round 87 of Scott vs Magneto for the heart and soul of mutantkind. This segueways perfectly back to the headquarters, and, wow, Eva Bell has so much more gravitas and weight as a character now, no problem, a deft turn of characterization from Bendis, I’ll say again. Then there’s that climax back on the mountain with Scott & Matthew & Illyana, which looks fairly catastrophic and would be momentous enough all by itself, but that last page is so much heavier, even. This is a really exciting time to be reading these books, Bendis has everything elevated past a fever pitch. Bendis X-Men and Hickman Avengers both are just freaking out right now. And speaking of perfect segueways . . .

BEST OF WEEK: NEW AVENGERS #028 — I didn’t have a chance to get my pulsing hands on most of these books until it was actually 2015, and I couldn’t believe that more people weren’t freaking out about what goes down in this thing right here. Hickman has labored across many months and issues to set all this shit up and now he’s just supercolliding it together with reckless abandon! Old Man Steve drops Banner from a parallel universe on his foes in a double-page splash that is as iconic as anything that Deodato has ever drawn. I love limp Captain Britain just going flying, an interesting counterpoint to T’Challa, who apparently cannot be taken by surprise. Then enter Sunspot’s A.I.M. Avengers with the Shang-Chi army. This book is out of its mind. Steve is sure he’s outstrategized Reed, and if anyone was going to do it, it would have been him. But that’s Reed Richards. I really love him narrating this whole thing to Valeria. Hickman has got this thing cranked up to a point of maximum tension, it’s hard to see how the ever-escalating weight of all these plots and characters will be able to sustain itself from total collapse for a few months’ more.