4/06/15

SECRET WARS #1—After months of anticipation and a little more than two years of build-up, the 84th issue of Hickman’s Avengers run hits, and it is massive. There is all kinds of payoff here as the last two Earths have their own final incursion, and of course, it’s the good old 616 and the already-quite-often-rebooted 1610, otherwise known as the Ultimate Universe. Esad Ribic & Ive Svorcina provide interiors that are seismic enough to equal the huge scale of the proceedings. This issue pretty much delivers everything that we were expecting right here upfront, which is a welcome surprise, the 616 vs. Ultimate Universe, but Hickman is smart enough to burn all the way through that initial conflagration and on to the next thing, which will presumably be Battleworld, only Doom is also maybe already God and Reed has just lost his entire family. All kinds of shit raining down in this one, and we’re just getting going here. This is the only first issue of a Marvel event that I’ve read that is better than SECRET INVASION #1. Really fine work, all around.

SPIDER-GWEN #004 — Wow. This time out, we hit the brakes on the action-packed web-slinging and wall-crawling for the most part and instead just take emotional body blows at the old Parker homestead for the majority of the issue. Of COURSE in any reality, Aunt May knows exactly what to say to turn it all around for the heartsick teenager. Trading Peter “The Lizard” Parker for the 616 Uncle Ben in this iteration of the Spiderverse immediately felt like a masterstroke, but it isn’t until this issue that Latour really plunges us into the depths of what Gwen’s been feeling this entire time. And what a catharsis with the band. I suppose that it would be tough to pull off and make compelling for twenty pages in a row, but just the art alone on an all-The-Mary-Janes-concert issue sounds like the most wonderful thing. This was another beautiful single, the second in a row that not only completely delivers on the promise of that first episode but ups the ante and makes me really grateful that this title is so universally acclaimed and beloved and will hopefully be around for a long time to come. Like years, I mean.

CONVERGENCE: SPEED FORCE #2 — This is nothing but good fun. Meatloaf and macaroni & cheese. Perfectly inoffensive comfort comics. It wasn’t like pump-your-fist-in-the-sky awesome but enjoyable to folks who have missed Wally and would like to see him back in the fold. I was expecting a bit more of a conclusion or cliffhanger with regard to the main narrative, some kind of hook to make me want to dial into the main series, but I guess that’s not how they’re going to do things. The Zircher art on that GREEN ARROW preview is sick.

THE FOX: FOX HUNT #2 — What makes this a quality comic is that Haspiel & Waid have been producing excellent comics for such a long time and are both such masters of their craft that they know exactly what it takes to show up and hit every beat of what makes a superhero comic book enjoyable, regardless of how familiar the reader might be with the characters. Rather than evincing shame or offering in-text disclaimers to offset any awkwardness that they might be feeling by including necessary tropes of the genre, they appear to revel in their work and celebrate it. This positive energy is reflected in the artistic product. All of this pairs up really well with Larsen’s work on SAVAGE DRAGON. The moment when Paul throws up his lobster quesadillas while the bank-robber transforms into the brontosaurus guy is an instant classic. We throw subtlety out the window and revel in the over-the-top nature of the entire medium. There is a time for subtext, but this is not that time! He wants to quit, but life won’t let him, and neither will his son, and the bank robber turned into a monster, and so here is food poisoning vomit! And there is SPROING! It is a high-fiving good time for creator and reader alike. The “heroic ideal,” indeed.

SAVAGE DRAGON #203 — All of that stuff I just said here again. Every damn month, Larsen just cranks out the business. I can’t believe I’ve only been picking this title up for the past year. All love to Brother Matt Doman for his rabid acolyte insistence that I do so. This book does a fantastic job of juggling dramatic heartfelt moments with laugh-out-loud character beats, all with such heart that the characters feel real and completely fleshed out, even and especially sporting super-strength, fins on their heads, and Kirby krackle to spare.

ROCKET GIRL #6 — The time off has served Creative well, as we return with arguably the best-looking issue to date. The art is stunning. I can’t even parse if Reeder’s a better colorist or penciler. It doesn’t matter! Opening on Annie’s hot-dog-stand slap-fight is a charming way to bring us back in, but then you’ve got to love the flashback to Dayoung’s first day on the force. “By the book from now on.” Is that other officer from the future the son of Mr. T or something? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else use the term “jibber-jabber” before. Two slight hitches: I burned right through this issue and wish that there was a little bit more meat and overall narrative plot advancement to the proceedings this time out rather than just checking back in, and that last panel is completely jarring and comes out of nowhere (especially after the break), but these ad-free pages are so beautiful, all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you.

JUPITER’S CIRCLE #2 — Frank Quitely doesn’t do anyone a favor when he provides the cover for an issue that doesn’t feature his interior art because no matter how good you are, you’re going to come up short. What gravitas, what body language. I was a little bit surprised that this issue was again pretty much ninety percent about Blue Bolt being potentially outed by Hoover, but the resolution of that plot makes me hope that Millar’s going to pass around the spotlight a bit more evenly now. Torres does deliver some fine work, I should say.

GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS #8 — Oh 3-D Cowboy, our old pal, never leave us again and we will certainly afford you the same kindness! And always stay drunk. Very cool of past Star Fighter to use the go-to CCP Comics phrase of disparagement, “Eat a dick.” And the “I have no clue what I am looking at” is the kind of punchline that it takes multiple time-traveling incursions to earn.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #10 — McKelvie/Wilson really outdo themselves here. That long shot of the two kids flying into Hyde Park over hundreds of thousands of fans congregating is some pretty special business. Those black hole masses of supplicants who can never get enough. I think Gillen is making some kind of commentary about the rampant and insatiable consumerism that is raging through Western society, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, London!

ZERO #16 — Taken as a single issue, this is a moderately interesting sequential adaptation of some core concepts of Burroughs with Ginsberg as his co-pilot. It’s too soon to be certain before all is said and done, but at this point though, in terms of the series as a whole, tucking the main narrative into the notion that it’s all being channeled by a drug-takin’ WSB in 1961 Tangiers really seems to cheapen and devalue the titular story and doesn’t add any new weight to the overall affair. It would be interesting to know if this was always the plan or Kot just like drank some ayahuasca tea before it was time to plan out the third arc and then just had The Best Most Important Idea Ever (Or, So It Seemed At The Time).

BEST OF WEEK: DESCENDER #3 — More gorgeous and glorious science fiction beauty. The plot thickens with regard to The Harvesters’ methodology, and our hero-bot is reunited with his creator. Nguyen continues to deliver magnificent work that straddles the line between expressionism and impressionism and that can only come from years of operating at the top of his game. Lemire keeps on imbuing his characters with small quirks and foibles that render them all the more human and fleshed out, even if most of them are robots. And that’s not even counting terrific sub- or meta-textual bits like TIM-21 being pulled out of what is for all intents and purposes a near-death experience only to then literally meet his maker. The deal is, on first blush this series doesn’t scan as like some really dense hardcore work of fiction. The premise is simple enough. But the more you engage with this apparently simple fable of a little robot who thinks and acts just like a real boy, the more you find right there beneath the surface. It is immediately easy to empathize with this character and want to protect him, to want nothing tragic to befall him. These guys make that simple narrative trick seem so easy, so effortless, but I can attest that achieving this level of craft is anything but. I know that art is subjective and suppose that some people’s mileage will always vary, but this is as good as comics gets right here for me, pure raw story seething and surging up from the heart of ideaspace, and they’re still really only just getting started.