2/13/13

BATMAN #17 — And so at last we come to this. It’s only been four months, but each successive chapter of this main run of “Death Of The Family” has done such an effective job of ratcheting up the tension and elevating the stakes that after the first four parts of just the Snyder/Capullo main run, so much as opening up to this final first page was an almost unbearable proposition. I straight up paced back and forth through my living room for an extra ten minutes, had to knock down an extra Lone Star for the courage to finally proceed. Of course, everyone thought it was going to be Alfred’s head on the platter and so that meant that it couldn’t be, but then I tried to imagine what was the absolute worst thing that could happen, how could the Joker gut Batman most effectively, and the simple answer was to kill his son. I mean, there’s nothing worse. And that also would have done a real number on the fans, even in this jaded era of event deaths and next-month resurrections. And sure, there could have been a Lazarus Pit for Damian. His mother has a key to one or two of them. But it wouldn’t diminish the impact of the loss of life, his father holding the weight of that little lifeless body in his arms. I really did not want to read this comic book. But then it was midnight and what finer time to begin? A solid set-up with the splash on Pages Two and Three. No one’s dead yet, but no sign of Alfred. Okay, wait, Alfred’s alive but all Jokerized, which still elicits a “Thank God” from his surrogate son. And but then at last the reveal of what’s under the covered dish. Followed by a perfect layout from Capullo, that composite heart panel, almost like the sidekicks comprise the various chambers of Bruce’s heart, say, but then with the Joker underneath professing his own horrifying brand of undying love. “Beneath my grin, though, is just more grin!” is an incredible line. And I dig how Batman finally replies with nothing but a declaration of absolute hate. That’s perfect. Twists within twists: their faces weren’t really cut off and they’re all okay, and Batman should leave them to hunt down Joker for good, only then the bomb goes off and they all get gassed and start trying to kill one another. And we’re going great until we get to the last last climactic exchange between the two over the edge of the cliff in the underground cave. Batman makes the decision not to kill Joker because of course he mustn’t, but now he’s suddenly figured out who Joker is? And is about to whisper his true identity when Joker hits the boobytrap on the cowl and gets shocked and squirms out of his opponent’s grasp to fall to yet another indeterminate fate. Total lack of resolution. I mean, I see how that’s the way it had to go, something like that. This can’t be the last page of Miller’s HUNT THE DARK KNIGHT, the third installment of that landmark story, that kind of thing isn’t going to fly here in the monthly “main” continuity. It just felt like this was entire thing was all set-up, very intelligent and perfectly conceived set-up that failed to deliver on anything lasting. Not that I wanted Alfred or Damian’s head on the platter. But that bit about the Joker’s identity at the very end is a microcosm of what left me kind of squinting askew at the final few pages of this. The whole thing left me feeling quite empty. Maybe that just means it worked. I do quite like how the title of the arc came true, the only actual casualty of this whole mess, at least for the next little bit here, appears to be the tightly knit set of foster relationships that Bruce has cultivated with his various sidekicks over the years. Which was all part of the master plan, naturally. Curse you, Joker!

BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN AND ROBIN #17 — And then but here comes this slice of perfection barreling up out of nowhere. Tomasi/Gleason/Gray have been killing it since Day One (and I think Kalisz has been onboard that long?), but it is a true testament to the full extent of their powers that they can roll up right behind the conclusion to such an overall well executed event and knock it out of the park with a damn dream issue. I mean, this kind of thing is usually a throwaway, heavy on the shock and spectacle because nothing needs to count, there doesn’t have to be logic, but it’s hard to make any of it stick or feel like it in any way matters. This series of dream sequences, however, manage to provide characterization while dropping us down the rabbit hole of the Wayne family psyches. Damian works through some not surprisingly dark imagery of everybody else drowned in a submarine holding tank before chasing a robin into his father’s pivotal bell-ringing encounter with the bat in the parlor. Alfred, no surprise, conjures up Thomas and Martha in order to see them one more time before knocking out some traditional wish fulfillment by unloading both barrels of a shotgun all over Joker’s face. But then Bruce, man, I can’t quite unpack that entire mess, his parents fall out of his boat and then various rogues threaten to capsize it but instead the whole mess tumbles into the belly of a Jokerwhale? And then Damian pulls him up out of the water, saves him in a way that he couldn’t save his own parents. Dreams are weird. But just a beautiful last scene there, the one-two of Bruce checking on Damian, tucking him in and patting on him, the boy smiling and then dreaming of watching the sunrise with his father. Stirring material. Really strong work from all parties.

COMEDIAN #5 — Fast Eddie’s Vietnamese hijinx continue and they are about as unfunny as we’ve all come to expect. With a dash of baby-eating allusion to bring the point home. J.G. Jones and Alex Sinclair continue to provide lush photo-realistic art as perfectly suited to the tone of the character as Azzarello’s brutal and unflinching script. The bit about 500 being an unacceptable threshold for the American public accepting casualties rings particularly true. And Bobby. It would actually be kind of a brilliant twist if, after all this time, Eddie turns out to be the clandestine assassin for the other Kennedy brother. In the next six to eight weeks, we’ll know.

FATALE #12 — And that’s two issues of this one in a row. Like THE UNWRITTEN, I’m finding that I dig this series more when it breaks from the main narrative and just runs wild down a tangent track. In both cases, the regular stuff is of course terribly compelling, but these offshoots have an energy, a momentum to them that is contagious. The creators infect you with their excitement for their sudden whiplash-inducing left turn. Here, we finally meet another Femme Fatale who is tied up in the origin of all these shenanigans thus far. But, even better, Brubaker and Phillips welcome Bettie Breitweiser to the book as regular colorist. Losing Dave Stewart would be a catastrophic blow to pretty much any creator-owned title such as this, but of course this dynamic duo gets right back on their feet with one of the best and most underrated colorists in the business. Beautiful work, all.

STAR WARS #2 — The team nails another opening scene, we get a shot of Han/Chewie interaction before Boba Fett shows up and then there’s just enough time to plot a course through hyperspace and jump to lightspeed before the Star Destroyer shows up to corral the Falcon. I’m pretty sure I did exactly this with action figures in 1982. Leia watching the Alderaan tourism video is a nice touch, as is the conversation between the simulation tech and Wedge about what a cocky pilot Luke is. He was much whinier just a little while ago, fellas, old Biggs Darklighter could tell you a thing or two. Wood succeeds in making this new Colonel Bircher fellow interesting and engaging in his first three pages. That’s not all the groundwork that needs to be laid, we meet six new characters in a single page. It’s interesting, as much as you’d think the personal details would help lock down all these new folks in your mind, the two descriptions that stick out most aren’t anecdotal but planetary: “Tess Alder, from Corellia,” and “Gram Cortess, from Alderaan.” What is that last shot of Prithi supposed to mean, though? She’s got something going for or against Leia or Luke? She’s the spy? And but of course killer and gorgeous last page. Not even that much really went down this issue, but I already can’t wait for next month.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #9 — Well, it seemed to me that last issue was the big finish of this title’s first major arc, and the majority of the climax certainly went down, but this epilogue delivers more than enough thunder all on its own. With a little help from FDR: A.I., our heroes track down and eliminate the scattered members of the cabal who have until now held the world under their thumb. Strange bit of synchronicity, the A.I. referring to Truman as the cabal’s “big stick,” the same name that Azzarello has Edward Blake originally choosing for his masked identity on up the page a bit. This particular big stick meets his grisly fate at the hands of Oppenheimer, all the more horrifying from taking place off-panel. And great fake-out with Kennedy’s speech in Texas there, of course all anybody’s expecting is them sending him off to his assassination, but it turns out to be the inspirational “We choose to go to the moon,” number from September ’62 at Rice, ghost-written by Feynman, apparently. So but, wow. All this has basically amounted to the pilot. The stage is set. Our amoral monstrous protagonists have installed themselves as the secret rulers behind the powers that be on both sides of The Iron Curtain. What Happens Next? has never been a more compelling question, as far as this series is concerned.

MORNING GLORIES #24 — And another Ike issue comes through with the big revelations naturally leading to more questions but providing more substantive answers than we’re used to getting. As ever, much appreciation to the creators for providing such a ridiculous amount of content at absolutely no additional cost. 44 pages, ad-free, for $2.99. That’s like nine dollars worth of business over at the Marvel! This story needed that much room to breathe, though. Of course, Spencer isn’t merely dicking around by naming his father/son combo here after the immediate ancestors of Jacob, but actually straight up invoking the Judeo-Christian mythology that winds up getting inverted in a scene that plays as surprising but is actually completely set up in hindsight. Eisma and Sollazzo continue to barrel along at an almost Kirby-level pace, regularly slamming out pages faster than pretty much anybody else you can name these days, always putting storytelling first but never sacrificing the quality of staging, composition, body language, facial expressions. These guys are operating at a high level of craft and making it look much easier than it is, all in the service of a hell of a ripping good story.

AMERICA’S GOT POWERS #5 — And speaking of value, here we have three dollars for 28 pages of Hitch/Neary/Mounts goodness. 29 pages, really, that last one double-page splashes into the inside back cover. That’s more than enough, right there. Dear old Wossy isn’t just dialing right in and breaking my heart with any of this characterization, but the story clips along at a brisk pace and he certainly never fails to keep you engaged and wondering where the plot is heading. It’s interesting, what an almost house style this art team is unto itself at this point, Mounts wasn’t on AUTHORITY, but of course it started there (or with STORMWATCH, but splitting hairs, there), then ULTIMATES, that FF run with Millar, and now over here before heading back to light up the good old 616 here in a just a bit with some Ultron fighting time. If you need an army of super-folk filling up the sky, no one can do it for you like these fellows.

FANTASTIC FOUR #004 — Fraction really lathers up the doey-eyed loving goodness as Reed delivers a second-person narrative aimed at his true love, recounting their first days of courtship. It’s an ideal time for it, make him as sympathetic as possible, because of course there’s no way he’s able to keep the real reason behind their space/time field trip a secret from his beloved for long, and oh but it also turns out he’s the one who traveled back in time to drop some ancient prophetic cave paintings for some alien civilization they just now met who, surprise, actually turns out to not be horrible and bloodthirsty. At least, so far. A sweet little shot of Valentine’s, this.

THE UNCANNY X-MEN #001 — You know how just the taste or smell of something you haven’t experienced in a long time can rocket you right back to the last time and place when and where you did? I think that Proust fella wrote a few words about such a phenomenon one time. I seldom experience such a sensation with new books on Wednesday nights, but man, that very first page, Maria Hill striding down the hall but like we’ve never seen her before, body language, the simple lines of her face, the characters’ stance in relation to one another, and those colors, oh it’s vintage Bachalo, I’m a teenager falling in love with Death learning the high cost of living and having the time of your life and then the yearn and burn of Paige & Starsmore for one another over in that first and forever greatest GENERATION X. It’s funny, I’ve seen new Bachalo pages as recently as this new Wolverine series with Aaron and then seems like at least something else since that killer “Assault on Weapon Plus” arc back a ways on Morrison’s NEW X-MEN but just something about the set-up this time out sent the floodgates of nostalgia crashing down and roaring open. So. That was nice. But how’s the rest of the book, the actual content? Well, with Bendis behind the helm, it is no great surprise that the entire thing takes place as a conversation between two principles and one of them is his beloved Agent Hill. But the main news, the real deal, is that almost half of this thing’s twenty pages are slightly askew double-page layouts of Bachalo drawing the Sentinels whupping up on Cyclops’s Uncanny Brotherhood and getting whupped upon in return. A pretty binary situation, that’s either going to turn you off and earn a Pass or you’re immediately going to have to see this robot-fightin’ time for yourself. On the reread, this one does come off a bit skinnier than the justice getting slung over in ALL-NEW, but the reveal on the last page does skew the status quo better than what we were supposed to be afraid it was, and hey, Bachalo Sentinels.

2/6/13

DETECTIVE COMICS #17 — These guys Layman, Fabok, and Cox are just going for it so hard with such consistency, it’s really starting to freak me out. I can tell that I’m going to run out of things to say about this run pretty soon now, because every single time out, I love every aspect of every page, there really appears to be no room for improvement, I will soon be reduced to simply listing what happened and pointing out the various aspects of how great it was. I guess start pining for a Mason Savoy crossover appearance, maybe. That’s it, this run won’t be perfect until that’s happened.

ANIMAL MAN #17 — It’s all been building to this, the final assault on Arcane from two fronts. Lemire & Snyder keep the action moving and Pugh and Green again both turn in fine work in styles that manage to be unique but not clash. I do appreciate the decision to delegate them specific groups to draw and not expect the reader to reconcile two different versions of the same character when there’s more than enough going on here with this ensemble to not need to pass various folks around. The choice of new Green Lantern is particularly inspired, I would definitely be very much all over any further adventures from that particular fellow. Perfect cliffhanger, everything’s humming along quite nicely here. Over to you, Holland.

SWAMP THING #17 — And but, hell. Where the fuck is Marco Rudy? Nothing against Andrew Belanger. Out of context. I’m not familiar with his work and he turns in perfectly serviceable pages, certainly better than anything I can produce. And he’s going for those organic Paquette panel-border layouts. But it’s impossible to read this as a monthly fan without taking the situation into context. We are at GoTime here. This is the finale of something that’s been organically building with nary a misstep across two titles for a year and a half. I get the whole thing about how you can’t always have Paquette every month, but here’s the deal: don’t send Rudy—who has been nothing but terminating his alternate slot in this title with extreme prejudice since the get-go—his marching orders before seeing this thing through to the end. I just presumed that #15 being his last issue meant that we were solid with Paquette for the duration. I don’t care if Rudy picked up a Spidey book for the other guys. Booting him out of spite only hurts the title and the fans who have supported it all this time. It would be one thing if they brought in someone else who just blew it up. Gene Ha did stellar work over in ACTION and even a lesser-known name with serious proven chops like Eddy Barrows would have been a great fit. As is, I never managed to fully engage with the story due to my frustration with Editorial over the art not quite living up to the insane bar that this title has consistently set for itself since September 2011. Looking to be crushed next month but am not pleased with this hiccup.

GREEN ARROW #17 — Okay, I’m admittedly a bit lost, as this is my first issue, I came onboard with the new creative team, but it appears as though Oliver has been completely rebooted and was another beautiful nameless no-dialogue extra on Seasons 3 and 4 of L O S T immediately before this series/issue began? The questions don’t matter, Lemire provides us the bare bones of a status quo before completely upending it and throwing in the nemesis yang to our hero’s yin. I’ve been a big fan of Andrea Sorrentino since X-FACTOR and these pages are taking it to a next level, reaching for that J.H. Williams greatness with the occasionally uncolored in-panel squares highlighting crucial limbs/weapons in the fight. Also, gorgeous colors. Are any other New 52 people coloring their own work? It doesn’t bode well for a lack of fill-ins, here’s hoping editors Cavalieri/Stewart check back in to the Rudy school of thought in that regard when the time comes, as opposed to what we just got a minute ago in SWAMP THING. This first issue didn’t just annihilate me, but the creators are top drawer and I look forward to seeing what else they’ve got in store.

MULTIPLE WARHEADS: ALPHABET TO INFINITY #4 —I can’t tell if the four-month Graham blister bender I’ve been on this last little bit jamming all of KING CITY and regular installments of PROPHET and then this entire thing too finally like gave me an overdose or if I’m just bummed that Sexica and Nikoli didn’t show up in this issue or what, but this one didn’t fill me up with the usual magic. That’s of course badly understating and kind of terribly taking for granted all the wonder and greatness  and undistilled fun that Brandon Graham still manages to impart upon every single page. The stretch from “Cannibal Run” to “Sphinx to High Heaven” containing the Disbelief Suspension Bridge is maybe my favorite sequence of pun insanity thus far. Until the Marx Men show up. To say nothing of all that absolutely rabid pear nonsense at the end. And I’m a huge fan of the Six Paths Out of Nowhere to Anywhere. I’ll probably sit on this for a few months and work up an appetite before downing all four in a single sitting and finding new things to love about this that escaped me on the first couple of passes through.

FASHION BEAST #6 — Wow, there is a ridiculous amount going on in simply those first three pages alone: the silhouette-play crosses over from any pretense of subtlety to have the reader all but reading the dialogue of the Beast/Le Patron in the author’s rumbling baroque Northampton accent, also that bit about the bald ape inventing fashion, and then climaxing in the “for in the image, there . . . is . . . power!” line, which of course has all kinds of resonance in the comic book industry that it didn’t twenty years ago. I know this was written a few years before that, but, especially delivered by his proxy avatar, that line serves to comedically enhance the mythical magus legend that Moore has crafted around his public persona, further makes him seem like this wild sequential Nostradamus of the eighties, scribbling out phrases and throwaway plot ideas that predict or self-fulfill into relatively seismic events and changes in the industry landscape decades later. Glamour, indeed! The face reveal, it was a perfectly executed shot/counter-shot between the odd/even page-turn, but at first it seemed like we shouldn’t have gotten to see his face, not now, if ever. Really seemed like a mistake. But it did lend the following conversation a bit more depth than it would have otherwise had. Perfect last shot, there at the end.

DAREDEVIL: END OF DAYS #5 — Yet another seismic installment of one of the greatest Daredevil stories of all time. I’ve said it before, but I’m so so glad I didn’t wait for the trade on this, even bought #1 with the intention of doing so but just wanting to get the first chapter after all of these years, only then I couldn’t stop, but the tremendous benefit for everyone who’s picking this up serially is we have a real-time seven-month gap between that opening scene and finding out what the hell Mapone means in the final issue. The mystery has weeks and weeks and weeks to percolate and fester in our imaginations, accruing all kinds of weight and poignancy and expectation that is simply impossible to achieve for a reader who just sits down some time next year with a really gorgeous hardcover and jams the entire thing in a single sitting. So, all of that said, what’s my take on this particular issue, the first one of the back half of the series?

Well, I’m certainly a fan of opening with a Sienkiewicz-painted Punisher VS Daredevil splash that tosses out the old crackpot theory that they were really the same person. While we all know that can’t be the case, just the simple idea sent my brain racing to make connections, rewrite exchanges. “I am Matt’s great vengeance and furious anger.” The idea of Matt training his disciple is so spot-on from a character standpoint, I’m terribly embarrassed not to have immediately hit upon it as soon as I made it to that last page of the first issue. And but wow, it’s been cool enough revisiting all the C- and D-list members of the rogues gallery but one of, maybe THE, very first issue of DAREDEVIL that I bought new off the spinner rack was, I wanna say #267, well into the Nocenti/JRJr run with Bullet fighting Hornhead on the cover with his little daughter in the background, so it hit me a lot harder, much more personal emotional resonance, Bullet rushing in like that at the end, as opposed to someone like Gladiator or various other folks we’ve dropped in on so far. And of course the cliffhanger is heartstopping and as good as it could possibly be. Rescue from plummeting to death and potential answers are only four weeks away! I’m really just terribly grateful to all of these guys—Mack, Bendis, Janson, Sienkiewicz, Hollingsworth, Caramagna, even that old Wacker—for producing such a quality product and proving once again that no matter how many great stories have been told about a character (I mean, look at it, the original Miller run, Miller back with Mazzucchelli in one of the greatest Marvel stories of all time, Bendis/Maleev with a little help from Mack, Brubaker/Lark), it’s always possible to dig a little bit deeper and try to pull out maybe the best one yet. Inspiring work.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #7 — Kitty trains three-fifths of the founding crew and Mystique takes a walk with young Scott. Bendis continues to completely nail every character voice. Had talked myself into holding the line against picking up UNCANNY with Bachalo, in some small way rein in this bi-weekly Marvel Now! rampage, but the only one I’d be hurting is myself. Marquez and Gracia turn in pages that put storytelling first but still manage every single time to be a series of lush breathtaking snapshots that you can stare and stare at all on their own without wondering what happened before or after, whatever you’re seeing right there in that moment is more than enough. I am curious now for the first time what kind of a timeframe Bendis has for this thing, I mean, he can keep it going for a while, but seems like this is a finite situation. By definition, no? I’m going to throw a blind dart at the board and say the last issue is #35, due this Christmas.

AVENGERS #5 — Here this book is again! That’s three in three weeks, True Believers. We have here another –centric issue introducing us to a new member of the team and, correct me if I’m wrong, one of the two new characters that Hickman has created for this series. Izzy Dare is an impressive figure, managing to join the Imperial Guard on her own merit, though she’s certainly got the genes for it, since her grandfather’s name can’t be a coincidence. Isn’t he English, though? That screwed me up, when I got to the name at the end, realized I’d been maybe doing the accent throughout? Kubert’s work is commendable as ever but I do miss Dean White on colors. Wonder what team is next on deck. A couple more singles with Kubert/(Frank) Martin first? Is Frank Martin, in fact, married to Laura? If so, is it wrong that I like him better?

BEST OF WEEK: NEW AVENGERS #3 — Holy shit! Those first two issues, as tremendous as they were, definitely seemed to be little more than set-up for some very serious business to crash through into the good old 616, and here we have it. Four days later, indeed. The events that take place in this single issue deliver more drama, shock, and raw seething imagination crackle than anything that anyone writing for Marvel has ever ever managed to pack into any of these so-called Big Events that keep coming down the pike as reliably as spring blooming into summertime. That is not hyperbole. There are two massive plot points that take place in these twenty pages alone that would deliver upon any level of supermassive Internet hype, the kind of which is regularly heaped upon these crossovers. That’s the joy and wonder, I’m not picking this up curious to see what massive paradigm they’re going to shift askew for a little while or who’s going to get killed and then resurrected a few months later, I’m only expecting to be completely blown away by events on a scale that is immense enough to justify this gathering of heavyweights in the Marvel Universe. I really dug that initial ILLUMINATI mini-series that Bendis and Reed banged out a few years back that serves as the jumping-off point here, very intelligent retcons packed throughout, but ever since then, I haven’t felt like the concept was able to translate into present-day events with anything even approaching the amount of weight and gravitas that such an undertaking warrants. Those days are done. What’s happening in this title is, for my money, the biggest event that the House of Ideas has ever produced. I mean, a fifty-word sentence summarizing exactly what takes place in this issue is all that it would take to convince even the most jaded corporate comic boycotter, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Same goes with attaching the best images to this post, even unlettered, just the Epting art alone would give too much away. Just buy the first three issues of this book.

 

This was the first time, I totally missed it last issue, but the connective tissue between this title and the other one is most likely “the event” that happened in a parallel universe and triggered this multiversal calamity in the first place. That’s got to be the White Event that Adam referenced in his encrypted dialogue up on Mars over in #3 of the other title. If the Psi-Hawk shows up, I am going to seriously lose my shit, it will not be a pretty thing. Though, hey, just realizing that getting JRJr to draw Kenneth Connell/Star Brand is more probability than possibility, if the New Universe is actually the place Hickman is looking to take this mad narrative. Wild wild times. The only slightly false note to be found here is that that last page is more than a bit reminiscent of a crucial plot point in a ten-year-old DC event, but I can almost No-Prize myself into reconciling that via the entire parallel worlds/realities conceit of this series and the fact that Captain America and Batman are Marvel/DC equivalencies, if not analogues, pretty much without debate*, so this is just the way all of that mindwipe malarkey played out in the 616. Without the ridiculous amount of color-coded first-person narrative captions that make you spend half the book trying to figure out who the hell is even telling you the story. I am out of my mind for this thing, can't wait to see where it's heading next.

* SEE: “Under the Red Hood” vs “The Winter Soldier”; “The Return of Bruce Wayne” vs “Captain America: Reborn”; the pair’s interaction in Busiek/Perez’s pitch-perfect JLA/AVENGERS

1/30/13

BATMAN INCORPORATED #7 — All right, I totally missed that ninja-ManBat swooping our guy up into the upper right corner of the first page the first two times I read this. Though I still love the layout. Beryl’s stuttering dialogue is really rough going, and I mean from an emotional standpoint not one of comprehension. And then Damian and Alfred. Man. It is a shame that the world is likely ever only going to get two or three dozen more panels of them exchanging Morrison-scripted dialogue. Every line is so perfect at this point. We’ve come so far. And oh but hell. That enforcer fellow reminiscent of a Middle Eastern Bane being a Damian clone is another lunatic twist of perfection that is of course painfully obvious in hindsight. I thought Tim was toast. But is Jason, really? Are we supposed to come away with that impression? It didn’t even occur to me the first pass through but then later on I saw something about a hero dying this issue. If so, almost a hilarious lack of fanfare worthy of this permutation. That Ellie-Bird lady who got away, let’s not forget her, she’ll surely have some pivotal role to play. The shot of Bat-Cow and Ace and Alfred the Cat huddled up in a nap is a glorious homage to Baltazar’s Super-Pets, hard to handle. Again, Damian and Alfred take it on that last scene, such incredible chemistry. And good hustle to Jason Masters for rising to the rough rough challenge of pinchhitting for Burnham on a scant three pages and doing a more than reasonable facsimile of his style. Don’t want this to end. But can’t wait.

BEST SINGLE OF THE WEEK: BATMAN AND ROBIN ANNUAL #1 — Tomasi and the usual crew of Gleason/Gray always deliver entertaining slices of interaction between Damian Wayne and his father but in this annual, Tomasi brings in Adrian Syaf and Vincent Cifuentes to help produce an issue that is not only the best single of the week but one of the best done-in-ones I can recall reading for quite some time. The conceit is forehead-slappingly obvious in hindsight. Damian rigs a global scavenger hunt for his father, sending him gallivanting around the world to uncover fairly seismic bits of evidence pertaining to Bruce’s parents that he has remained ignorant of his entire life. While Bruce is out of town, though, Damian has the run of Gotham and doesn’t waste any time, setting an alarm for sunset and rampaging around the city all through the night, running afoul of criminal and cop alike. Thus, we have a compelling juxtaposition of the maniac assassin-trained sidekick running amok with as much pure unfettered joy as you might expect a ten-year-old to express in that situation opposite very well written and thought-out character moments from Bruce’s early childhood or the days of his parents’ marriage before he was born. And Alfred breaks out his Shakespeare costume and takes another ride on the boards of the Globe theater, most of which is left off the page but conjured in our imaginations to glorious effect. I really really love this story, find it thrilling but am also ridiculously proud of Tomasi for hitting a new high with such a tremendous character. Top drawer work, all around.

 

FLASH #16 — Damn, you wouldn’t think the art on this book could get any better and then here comes the first page. And the next two pages. And why stop there? It just keeps happening! Manapul & Buccellato continue their high-velocity rampage with no signs of slowing down. One of the best looking books on the rack but with enough narrative heft and character work to back up all that beauty.

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #16 — Janin’s lush work took a dip on this one, I can’t believe some of these pages weren’t a fill-in. The deadline crush! It does one’s heart good to have Frankenstein’s adventures continue within these pages. Constantine involuntary blurting the truth is a clever idea that it seems should be played to more humorous effect. Humourous? I do like the new secret origin of the Books of Magic, that works. And that is one gorgeous last page.  

OZYMANDIAS #5 — An elegant bit of retconning here, Wein corrects a major plot point that he found objectionable over twenty-five years ago. He found the similarity between Moore’s answer to why the Comedian was killed (because someone wants to perpetrate the greatest hoax in the extant history of civilization and use a giant fake alien squid to prevent Armageddon and unite humanity) and an old episode of THE OUTER LIMITS just a bit too close for comfort and insisted that Moore dig deeper and change it. Of course, Alan wasn’t having it and Wein wound up walking off the title as editor sometime around #10. All this time later, Wein winds up writing the autobiography of this title character and comes up with the reasonably organic solution of having him scour the annals of popular culture for inspiration and just straight up happening upon that very episode. This is the second BW retcon in as many weeks that I’m totally on-board with, which I certainly did not see coming this time last year. It also makes total sense that the majority if not all of the tech advances are brought about through Adrian surreptitiously co-opting Dr. Manhattan’s abilities. And the cover to this one is brilliant.

THE UNWRITTEN #45 — We take a break and check in with Savoy, who really isn’t that bad of a guy, still. Worth it for the page of misspelled zombie fiction by the twelve-year-old alone, good night, I lost about five minutes there, laughing my ass off on the couch.

MARA #2 — Mm, maybe Wood has just spoiled me with THE MASSIVE but I come away from this one with the same feeling that I did from the first one. The art’s very pretty and the story is somewhat intriguing, but this one isn’t delivering enough punch to justify picking it up in singles, particularly with this cliffhanger being such a miniscule escalation on we got last issue. I will gladly pay half-price for this trade the first time I see it on the shelves of Half Price Books.

GLORY #32 — Beautiful damn cover. And then that first panel is something special, as well, I’ve got to say. But then I was sorry to see that this was a jam issue, really dig Campbell on interiors. I should have had more faith, Owen Gieni’s style is a great fit for Riley, but then Emi Lenox dropping in on Henry is suddenly the greatest most wonderful thing ever, all through the lense of a vintage camera and looming death. Though I don’t recognize that Question ripoff there in the next scene. Nanaja + The Baby wants to be its own one-shot spinoff. Checking in with everyone for Last Moments scenes wound up being a cool way to pad an art-jam issue and hopefully give Campbell enough lead-time to bring this baby home. Awesome last page.

HAWKGUY #7—Fraction and Hollingsworth bring in Lieber for a Very Special Superstorm issue and of course it’s got as much heart and emotional weight as you expect from this crackerjack creative team. Clint continues to not be an Avenger and help one of his neighbors get his dad and all that’s left from his dead mother out of his house before ceding the back half of the issue to Katie-Kate, who has her own Jersey wedding adventure, that phrase pretty much saying it all. As much as I adore Aja on this series, we’re in a pretty good place when the fill-in guy is able to drop possibly the most iconic shot of Miss Bishop thus far, that last solo panel when she turns and hollers “Jersey rules!” And of course the last page is perfection. Clint and Kate are already close to my favorite relationship in comics at this point. Not counting Damian and his dad. And Damian and Alfred. Rubbing my hands together in gleeful anticipation of how this crew might fold Noh-Varr into the situation in light of that first scene from Team Phonogram’s YOUNG AVENGERS.

AVENGERS #4 — It’s always good fun to ignore the solicits and then find an A-lister like Adam Kubert on one of your favorite titles one fine Wednesday morning. With that opening arc behind us, Hickman zooms out to a relatively ancillary C-team, the back six of eighteen, you could say, as they deal with the arrival of a sixth origin bomb at the Savage Land. But the real meat of this issue is the secret origin of Hyperion, which, I can’t tell if we’re rebooting it here or just streamlining Gruenwald’s deal with the original SQUADRON SUPREME or cleaning up JMS’s MAX version, though I strongly doubt the latter to be the case. Regardless of whether this is an ultimatized continuity or a brand new one, the point is that our Superman analogue is not the most stable of fellows and a timebomb that will in all likelihood detonate at a most inopportune moment, I’m going to guess sometime around #11. Which will probably be out by like the end of March, the pace we’re running, here. This is the first issue of the run in either title that I felt could have used a little bit more meat on it to justify the price-point, but you know, Hickman and Kubert on AVENGERS, I guess they’re wearing me down on that $4/20pgs thing over time but that still makes plenty of sense.

BEST OF WEEK: THE ONE TRICK RIP-OFF & DEEP CUTS — It isn’t really fair to compare this to other books that came out this week. What we have here is nearly three hundred pages of early Paul Pope, beginning with a graphic novel that I believe was serialized in a dozen or so issues of DARK HORSE PRESENTS that Bob Schreck commissioned after reading something Pope self-published at Comic-Con ’93. Those were the days. The kicker is that these twenty-year-old pages have been newly colored by Jamie Grant, one of the very best colorists in the industry, which is the best news I ever could have received from the Table of Contents. I’ve only managed to track down a single later issue of THB, so that until now 100% and HEAVY LIQUID have been the earliest look I’ve had at Pope’s development. And you can see how this right here is the work of a young man, the momentum and narrative energy of the thing carry you right on through from the first page. But it’s wild how developed Pope’s idiosyncratic style already is at the age of twenty-three. Of course he kept evolving all though his twenties, and naturally continues to do so, but so much of what is unique to his work is already there, mostly or fully formed: the way he draws those brash confident faces or lips that can pucker into a seemingly endless succession of expressions, the obsession with international cuisine and Indian food in particular, the frenetic camera work that rockets you right through an action scene and then slows down and zooms out for wide-open panoramic landscapes . . . I’ve always really loved the guy’s work but don’t think I’ve been afraid of him until now.

 

And that’s not even discussing the 160 pages of shorts that comprise the back two-thirds of this thing. A couple are only single-pagers while others stretch out to almost forty pages long, but it’s fascinating to watch his development over the course of eight years from Columbus to Toronto to Tokyo manga immersion and winding up in New York City, the only logical conclusion for an artist whose vision is a unique synthesis of Kirby and Moebius and manga and a bunch of other guys I’ve never even heard of, blending American superhero kinetic dynamism with lush and delicate European hyper-detail with the smash-cut action energy of Japanese comics. This is an essential book for any fan of one of the most exciting American artists of his or any generation. 

1/23/13

YOUNG AVENGERS #1 — As the biggest PHONOGRAM fan in at least the great state of Texas, I was beyond elated when this book was announced. Gillen/McKelvie/Wilson reuniting on any book is a cause for celebration, and I can’t think of a better team to shepherd this cast of characters in a post-Heinberg/Cheung era of the Now!. Massive anticipation for this thing. And it did not disappoint. My only problem is that the first five pages were so nuclear fantastic, the rest of the issue couldn’t possibly live up to them. I mean, I could go on and on and on about just that first scene. I’ll try to keep it down. We do, here, benefit from Fraction’s dead-on minimalistic character work he’s been rocking over on HAWKEYE, Kate Bishop is a much more engaging character than she was a very few months ago (and it’s not like she was ever less than completely well-rounded under Heinberg’s pen). Opening the series with her waking up post-coitus in orbit on Noh-Varr’s ship and then watching him dance to “Be My Baby” is quintessential PHONOGRAM and a perfect hook before they drop the thunder on that two-page twenty-one panel shot of glory that is just about the most fun I’ve had on a Wednesday night in the last little bit. Just a thrilling bit of business, loved it loved it loved it. Okay, but so, there was the rest of the issue, we meet our entire cast in a series of deftly handled exchanges that actually put the rest of them (excepting Noh-Varr and Kate) together by issue’s end. Gillen does fine work dialing us into the characters whether we’ve read every page upon which they’ve appeared, skipped CHILDREN’S CRUSADE in lieu of actually signing up for delays and waiting for the trade, or never read an issue of YOUNG AVENGERS in our lives. The art was as gorgeous as I expected it to be. The cliffhanger felt a bit limp for the first issue, but I’m very excited to have this one coming out monthly, though already concerned about the B-team if McKelvie/Wilson can’t keep up the monthly schedule.

MINUTEMEN #6 — Wow. This one was a slow burn but definitely well worth it here in the last chapters when Darwyn Cooke finally hits the gas. It’ll certainly make a hell of a single-sitting reading. As previously noted, Cooke nails the tone of Hollis Mason’s narrative voice and of course he draws the hell out of it, but the greatest compliment I can offer this series is that I accept the incredibly audacious and wildly ambitious retcon that it inserts into the mythos. I mean, it doesn’t contradict the original series but it tucks just a humdinger of an idea in the folds there that is so balls-out, my eyebrows are still as far away from my eyes as they can get a full week later. Azzarello still has to bring his two on in, but Cooke has now finished up both of his series, which means that for the first time, we can step back and evaluate a significant part of this thing as a whole. I don’t know, you guys, my brain keeps telling me I shouldn’t but I found this one quite enjoyable and really loved SILK SPECTRE.

WONDER WOMAN #16 — Azzarello/Chiang/Wilson guide us through another installment of the Wonder Woman mythos crashed into Greek mythology with the crowd from New Genesis orbiting the proceedings. I am a fan of the way Azzarello is extending the phrase “new god,” packing in even more meaning than we’ve seen before now. The art is still just as good as it gets. Not just a whole lot happens this time out, but the pages are so pretty to look at, that’s fine with me. (this completely got by me, but Dylan Todd points out that Milan's appearance is based on Wesley Willis, which really escalates my enjoyment of this entire situation. Good on ya, Cliff Chiang!)

BATWOMAN #16 — This is nothing more or less than another installment of greatness, J.H. Williams III at full strength more than ably abetted by W. Haden Blackman on script, Dave Stewart on colors, and Todd Klein on letters. Kate & Diana conclude their two-month (real-time) plummet into the fray and finally engage Medusa and all those scary monsters. The spread of the six Dianas doing battle with the six-headed Hydra is really and truly one for the ages. I shudder to think at what’s coming next month.

FABLES #125 — “Back to the main narrative then.” Thank you, Willingham! Or Ambrose? Isn’t it Ambrose narrating? These are probably so much more coherent and retainable in trade. I actually thought Stinky was quoting flash-sideways Martin Kimi with “The heart wants what the heart wants,” and got all choked up about Season 6 before checking and learning that it was actually some of the best dialogue that Woody Allen ever wrote, for himself, as ever. Stinky’s subsequent paraphrase is another one for the ages. Briar Rose’s summation of the past fifty issues is a head-shaking bit of business. This Prince Brandish fellow is certainly an interesting sort. With the opening of this arc, it feels like we finally got our book back after a bit of time spent wandering through the woods.

CHEW #31 — Man, it’s been however many weeks and I’m still so sad about last issue. That entire opening scene/flashback finds new ways to twist the knife. Fortunately, good old Layman and Guillory have another montage cued up to see us out of this mourning. Of course the con panel is the best. Guillory’s handwritten lettering jokes never fail and it’s great to see the creators, Eisma, and I guess a Bruno-donkey? “Death to the Chicken-Eaters?” Oh no! Plenty of horror to be found in the backmatter, as well, that sequence with the Chog turning around is chilling, and I really really hope Layman isn’t joking about DEEP SPACE POYO and SON OF POYO. There’s nothing anywhere or –when like this book.

THE MASSIVE #7 — ? ! ? ! ? ! ? !

PROPHET #33 — Graham and friends return with another slab of future science madness with Milonogiannis taking a ride on interiors. That Page Two/Three splash is worthy of Kirby, the ruins of the Hyperconscious Row, just magnificent even in its wreckage. This book feels alien, the creators have envisioned and crafted their world with such exact precision that it really breathes like the impossible future waiting for us at the end of the centuries. This is enhanced in no small part by Joseph Bergin III’s choice of quite radical colors to highlight the shifting scenes. I’ve been waiting with no small amount of anticipation for that one guy to turn up, should have known that he’d be reduced to a corpse-battery, perfectly in keeping with the established tone thus far. Really need to reread the first year’s worth of issues back in a single sitting, sure I’m missing all kinds of cool little recurrences. This is a dense one and well worth the multiple rides.

FF #3 — It got pretty dark pretty quick over here in the land of Allred. Uncle Johnny has crashed back into the present a few days past the team’s scheduled return with the unfortunate news that Dr. Doom, Kang, and an Annihilus from an alternate timeline merged into a composite being and then straight-up killed the other three founding members of the team with a series of specifically tailored deathtraps (actually, in The Thing’s case, he might still be falling down some endless wormhole or some such, but same difference). The best part, though, is that he gets a costume redesign that is vintage Allreds. In other news, the Moloids are pursuing their own agenda, which Fraction is smart enough to immediately illustrate jacks up their sustained end-consonant thing to new levels of creepiness. So with all that, what better way to break all the ultimate doom tension than a romp featuring Scott and Darla-wearing-a-towel versus a trio of pranksters from The Yancy Street Gang? I can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to me now, but of course we’re going to have to have a face-off between those assholes and the Tracksuit Mafia Draculas over in HAWKGUY. I’m really a fan of the way they shift the tone from total the-end-is-nigh horror there at the top with Uncle Johnny’s tale of what awaits the team in the other title to the breezier fare with the Moloids and Scott/Darla, all the way to that page that seems like it’s going to be a perfect moment, a forbidden kiss in Time’s Square at midnight on New Year’s Eve, only Scott flips it back over again, drops a first-principles phrase worthy of Hickman. “End Doom.” Apparently, that’s the macro-arc of this entire team, and I’m so glad I dodged all the interviews that were going on last summer because Fraction was just running around telling everyone that was the case while Hickman was still bringing it all in for a landing, and it is much better to arrive at that linearly through the narrative proper. And but the Allreds. There’s no one like them anywhere, the pages they produce, just singular glory that splits the difference between Silver Age beauty and a peek into a parallel dimension that’s more science fact than fiction.

UNCANNY AVENGERS #3 — Well, no one expected that this was going to be like monthly. It doesn’t matter, these pages, Cassaday & Martin can have as long as they want (though I presume they’ll be benched after the arc concludes in a few weeks in #4 and that at least #s 5 and 6 are already in the can). Remender does fine work doling out the team dynamics character by character. It is interesting to watch Captain America chafe under the command of a man that he’s handpicked as team leader. One bit of weirdness, though, we burn two pages and a panel on Cap fighting the Red Skull’s control, wanting to beat the shit out of mutants and then breaking free in a defiant splash page. Well done, only on the very next page, four panels later, he’s still screaming at Havok, questioning his leadership decisions. Even if it’s supposed to illustrate that Steve still has problems with the situation, even while not under telepathic influence, the momentum is pretty screwed-up. But that’s a small quibble, this is series remains nothing but great fun, total widescreen glory by one of the very best art teams in the industry and Brother Remender swinging for the fences even harder than during his celebrated run on UNCANNY X-FORCE.

BEST OF WEEK: AVENGERS #3 — All right, I just realized that this is the third Avengers title I picked up this week. That is admittedly a little bananas. As entertaining and concept-maximizing as the other two are, though, this one simply isn’t afraid to dream a little bit bigger. As they did with Remender back in UNCANNY X-FORCE, Jerome Opeña and Dean White continue to push the boundaries of what was previously thought acceptable in a mainstream superhero comic book. The pages look painted, lush tones that seem more likely to have turned up in a Marvel Graphic Novel back in the eighties when they were still numbering them (collect them all!). Hickman again does a fine job balancing his eighteen protagonists, shifting the emphasis this time out to the lesser-known reinforcements, shining brief spotlights on them all through a combination of dialogue and action beats with Captain Universe in particular stepping up and living up to her name. The way that shot of them all appearing on Mars was colored really reminded me of the cover of I want to say #7 of Bendis’s original NEW AVENGERS run, that first shot of them all as a team. This issue is satisfying on several levels, as there is more than enough slam-bang slugfest action to satisfy whoever just wants to watch the Hulk beat the shit out of everything, but that’s taking place throughout a discussion regarding creation and parenthood that stretches what should even be possible during a super-powered free-for-all that is very refreshing. All of this made reading this book a terribly enjoyable reading experience, but the level upon which is succeeds most and sent me nuclear was when I looked up the translation of the invented language that the Adam of the new species utters as soon as he is born. It’s not going to mean that much unless you have a fondness for a line of books that Jim Shooter launched twenty-seven years ago to celebrate Marvel’s twenty-fifth anniversary. But it’s really terribly thrilling and casts that white flash from the opening montage in #1 and again from Captain Universe in this issue in a whole new light. This opening arc was a hell of a thing, and Hickman and his crew are only getting started. And I still think I prefer the Illuminati title, even.

1/16/13

BATMAN #16 — More absolute magnificence from one of the best teams in monthly superhero comics. These guys just don’t know how to let up on the gas, I can’t imagine what’s in store for #18 and beyond. This issue treats us to the majority of Batman’s romp through Arkham and past a huge portion of his rogues’ gallery. Every aspect of this issue is as pitch-perfect as ever, the plot careens along barely leaving the reader time to fathom what’s happening before the Joker pulls the next trapdoor. The narrative voice is rock solid, with Richard Starkings on lettering subtly highlighting the difference Bruce’s lower-case journal-entry narration and Joker’s pronouncements in a madcap font. And Capullo/Glapion/Plascencia once again display why they are masters of their craft with pages that place storytelling above all else. It’s also an inspired bit of madness to get the follow-up to the main story’s cliffhanger on the following page, such a treat to have Jock on the backup. Far from outstaying its welcome, this event has roared right by, leaving the reader breathless for a conclusion that both seems about to appear far too early (how could we have already gone through the entire arc?) and looms much too distant four weeks into the future.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #16 — I wish they could have made it a bit less terribly obvious that Damian wasn’t fighting his real father. It would have made this issue much more of an emotional ride, but the fight sequences were choreographed with great precision. And of course it ended the only way that it could. Damian has come so far. Kind of sorry they decided to drop that image of him in his #666 costume for the first time chronologically in a damn ad, but am certainly chomping at the bit to get my hands on that annual, so I guess it’s doing its job. Nice tie-in on the last page to the simmering cliffhanger from Jock over on the main title. I’m getting quite worried that no one’s seen Alfred since the first part of this thing.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #16 — What a perfect final issue. Matt Kindt has always done a fine job preserving the groundwork that Lemire (and, arguably, Morrison before him) laid down while adding in his own minute developments and tweaks, but he puts the gas all the way down on the floor for this last gasp, delivering both codification and celebration of everything this book has stood for, perfectly contained within a single twenty-page narrative entitled, what else, “The Monster Bomb.” You can almost encapsulate the entire run in that last panel on Page Four, Frank leaping into action with his sword drawn. The real heartbreaker in this story is Kindt’s insertion of a new character, a CIA guy whose entire five-year operation comes crashing down around his head and who would make a fantastic foil for Frank and addition to the Creature Commandos, if this issue was functioning solely as his first appearance and not the title’s swan song. The best part is that this entire adventure is just a tangent operation on the way to taking out an enormous sand snake heading for Saudi Arabia. Have we even ever heard of the Aurora Robo Kits before now? Velcoro’s “going viral” joke is just the worst. I think Frank was calling Nina the fruit of the forbidden tree, not the tree itself. An important distinction when quoting Milton. The great trick of this story is that suddenly, two-thirds of the way through, the entire thing trapdoors into The Death of Frankenstein. Why not? It’s the final issue of the book. And the complete lack of sentimentality with which this is executed is perfectly in keeping with the tone of all that’s come before. And you know, he just had The Last Talk with Nina, gave Father Time shit for The Last Time, all of that’s suddenly falling into place, not unlike the protagonist himself immediately thereafter, who just gets the single page of plummeting toward the missile before perishing in a massive suicide-vest explosion on Page Sixteen. And it’s all terribly tragic and heroic and such a shame and just how it should be until you turn the page and remember, of course, he’s been dead all this time and will live to fight another day, many more days, until the end of days. His last line to Nina could not be improved upon, perfectly in character and following the flow of the narrative while we are caught up in its momentum until that last page-turn when you realize that it’s the last time we’ll see these characters, at least in this incarnation. The fact that I’m getting so sentimental over the ending of a book about Frankenstein leading a team of black-ops monsters is a testament to the power of the creators. May they bring life to these characters once again in the days and years to come.

FASHION BEAST #5 — An interesting enough pair of encounters in the two scenes, but as soon as we are promised something more substantive, the page count slams the door. Serialization of the screenplay loses again! At least the colors were pretty. I bet that next issue is a serious bit of business.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #12 — And so this title comes to the end of its first year. I’ve found every aspect appealing. Of course the art has been dynamite, no matter who’s been throwing it down, but the real star of the show has been Brian Wood guiding a younger, less experienced barbarian through an affair with the first true love he’s ever known, doing fine work straddling the line between action, dialogue and narrative captions that are evocative of Howard’s original prose. It’s been popular to dump on this comic because Conan hasn’t been such a relentless hardass destroyer for one-hundred percent of the time, but I’ve enjoyed seeing some chinks in his armor and found them believable given the timeframe of the story. I have elected to discuss the arc of this series as a whole rather than focus on the specific issue at hand because what happens within is, while not surprising, still executed to such heartbreaking effect that I really don’t want to talk about it. They did a really good job, made me very sad.

SAGA #9 — I don’t know if Vaughan’s just striking a tone with which I’m more and more attuned or if maybe I’m just not as into the protagonist family, but I thought this issue was just about perfect. The dynamic between The Will and Gwendolyn and Lying Cat is immediate greatness. I could really hang with just a series about them, which is of course the mark of a great ensemble drama, once you start having all these wonderful mini-narratives tucked inside. Which of course, we have in spades with Slave Girl’s ability to home in on the main characters. Am a big fan of The Will quoting Kirby while getting strangled by that last member of Sextillion Loss Prevention. Really could have done without Gwendolyn invoking Marko to no one in particular not once, but twice. Maybe more acceptable if we don’t definitively know that she’s his ex-fiancé but since we do, it’s just tiresome. But I’m quibbling about the only flaws detectable in an ocean of wonderful. Fiona Staples blows it up as usual. I still don’t get the uniform adoration this title’s been getting, but it is a consistently enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to the next issue more than ever.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #6 — I greeted this issue’s arrival with some amount of trepidation, thrilled for Austin local David Marquez to receive the level-up from drawing Bendis’s ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN to this one, which, I’m not 100% but seems like the first issues were not only the top of the chart for Marvel but they outsold everything else, as well. And Marquez has a hell of an act to follow. As I’ve made no bones about below, the first arc of this title is one of the best stories set upon Graymalkin Lane in years, and the pages turned in by Immonen/von Grawbadger/Gracia are some of the most beautiful on the rack. But any concern I had felt was completely misplaced, our boy shows up and knocks it out of the park right away. Bendis is nice enough to provide him with a nightmare sequence to open things up, so that by the end of the second page, we’ve seen Cyclops & Magneto and feral Wolverine has stabbed teen Jean Grey through the neck. And it looks gorgeous! The following interaction between Jean and Kitty and Ororo is probably my favorite in this series, which has put character moments first from the get-go. The deal with teen Scott stealing Logan’s chopper is a nice inversion from the first Singer flick. Is that a LOCKE & KEY Easter egg when Scott first heads into town? Page Eleven, Panel Two, that looks more than a little bit like Scot Kavanaugh and Kinsey Locke in the parking lot, there. And, again, tremendous work from Gracia, locking down serious continuity between Marquez inking his own work and the fellas who started us off on those first five issues. Highly recommended. Such a tremendous feeling to be loving a regular X-Men title this much again. I didn’t realize how badly I still needed these stories to be great.

DAREDEVIL #22 — Waid handles the Superior Spidey cross-over with his usual deft hand at characterization, both men act and react to one another exactly the way we would expect them to. The bit about the folding bills is another great bit of real-world minutiae Waid drops in that succeeds in making the reader understand just how many everyday facets of real life we take for granted that are completely different for not just Matt, but everyone else who shares his handicap. Um. The art is really good, too. Again. I’m kind of running out of nice things to say about this book. It lives up to the hype?

BEST OF WEEK: THE NEW AVENGERS #2 — Okay, so this is my new favorite series. It’s not that much of a shock, given the talent involved, I mean, you expect these guys to completely blow the doors off when they get together, but I guess it’s just the venue? I just wasn’t expecting what has been the ancillary spinoff title, the B-team to the A-listers over in the main title, to come with this much nuclear firepower. These guys are operating at a level so far above everything else that’s happening in a monthly title, it would almost be ridiculous, but it’s being played with such a straight face that the gravity of the situation is almost unbearable. Only two issues in, this feels so much more important than just about everything that’s gone before in the 616, Galactus be damned. In this hyper-jaded age of big events neverendingly tumbleweeding into one another, summer after summer, year after year, with a spiffy new cross-company branding moniker bridging the gap in between, pulling this off should be impossible. And yet.

It takes a full two issues to even set up the drastic scope of the situation. Which I won’t belabor here. Really, everyone should just read these. The first issue is an immaculately rendered episode in Wakanda that is perfectly compelling on its own until it, without indication or advance notice of any kind, suddenly tumbles into the greatest threat that our heroes have ever faced, one that will force Earth’s mightiest heroes to make an impossible decision in secret that will forever damn them in their own eyes, if they are even successful and manage to save the world. Is genocide on a planetary scale ever an acceptable alternative? What if five guys say it is and Steve Rogers won’t bend? That kind of thinking, these seven guys working in concert holding five Infinity Gems with Xavier’s still hidden, the secret having died with him . . . my mind is reeling and we’ve barely gotten started. Highly highly recommended to one and all. 

1/09/13

ACTION COMICS #16—Pretty wonderful out-of-left-field first scene here in the penultimate issue of the run as we open with adult versions of The Legion of Superheroes risking and in a couple of cases, sacrificing everything to get the founding trio to the last time bubble in order to head back in time and of course Save Everything. Hell of a way to burn the first five pages. Then, it’s all ominous portents and red skies as Lois and Jimmy provide exposition indicating that all of those early-nineties Doomsday death’n’resurrection shenanigans do in fact count in this new continuity, which, leaving aside the conundrum of what that means for the current iterations of Steel and Superboy, not to mention and most importantly, the incorporation of the Super-mullet into New 52 continuity, we head back into the near-future when Superman is getting his ass handed to him by the Anti-Superman Revenge Squad, I think we’re calling them? until loyal Krypto shows up to terrify villain and reader alike. I was looking for a follow-up to the Smallville era of the three-part time-trap from last issue, but I guess he just killed Ma and Pa and that’s it? Going to have to jam through all of these again before next month. The Fisch/Sprouse Legion back-up is crisp excellence.

Miller Says: I have no idea what is going on in this comic book. Why is Krypto so mad?

DETECTIVE COMICS #16—After only three issues, this title turns into a potentially thankless gig for the new creative team of John Layman and Jason Fabok. They’ve got to fall in synch with a line-wide crossover featuring the Joker cranking his malevolence up to the next level yet again. Even more unfortunately, it’s not like this is a book starring Dick Grayson or Barbara Gordon, with a little bit of room to play around. These guys have to engage us with the adventures of Bruce Wayne while he’s attempting to manage all of the chaos, but they’ve also got to work not to contradict or crowd the arguably central narrative that Snyder/Capullo are relating over in the eponymous title. While still remaining entertaining over here. It’s a rough set-up, creatively speaking, but these gifted creators stick a perfect landing, giving us a self-contained story highlighting all the copycat gangs running amok that maintains the more procedural tone that this title’s name implies. We also get an eight-page backup with Andy Clarke on art that further entrenches Emperor Penguin as a formidable foe who will no doubt advance to center-stage in this title whenever we’re done wondering who Joker’s going to kill next.

ANIMAL MAN #16—How is it already Part Four of these? This event is roaring right by. Bold move of Lemire to take out Green Arrow in flashback there on the second page. So much for taking over that one with #17. The Green Lantern power battery hidden inside the Daily Planet globe is an inspired choice. Though I’m a little unclear on how old Medphyll managed to use his ring to just annihilate the decomposed soldiers of The Rot. Pretty rough going with Maxine, there, painful to watch. Full marks to the team of Timothy Green II and Joseph Silver blending the art style on the flashback scenes with what Steve Pugh’s rocking on the present-tense business. Seamless work all around. And, whoa, Flash just takes out Constantine. Lemire doesn’t care! This ending is a fantastic blend with the opening of SWAMP THING and further reinforces this reading order I’ve been rocking since their respective first issues.

SWAMP THING #16—This issue’s second page immediately answers the first question that popped into my head over there at the end of ANIMAL MAN. Where’s Superman? I guess there will be no Kryptonian ex machina-type plot resolutions coming down the pike this crossover. Yanick Paquette and Nathan Fairbairn’s work continues to stun, just when you think they can’t crank it up any higher, they manage. I’m a fan of Man-Batgirl. Girl-Bat? The terminology doesn’t quite survive the leap. Of course Bruce left a tape with a plan. A bat-bot armed with weaponized bio-restorative formula. Naturally. Perfect and classic. I didn’t need to know right away that Batman was lying about the devices planted in Freeze, Croc, and Woodrue’s necks, wouldn’t have minded hanging out with that ambiguity for a few pages or forever. Alec powering up with Bane’s venom delivery system is also a really nice touch. And a suitably macabre ending. I don’t see how she’s getting out of that one, Dr. Holland.

BEST OF WEEK: STAR WARS #1—I’ve been really really looking forward to this since the afternoon it was announced, even had to call a couple of people and scream the news at them over the phone right away. Recruiting Brian Wood—who has proved so adept over the years at strong character work that makes you immediately empathize with brand-new protagonists during their first and in many cases only appearance in a given issue (see: DEMO, LOCAL)—to craft the adventures of the Rebel Alliance versus the Empire in the days immediately following the Battle of Yavin, that’s such a jackpot combination of premise and creative talent. Months of expectation leading into this, even further heightened by this beautiful Alex Ross cover. And this first issue, with one ruinous exception, completely delivers. The voices of the characters who we know so well are not only intact, but positively sing. You can hear the 1977 incarnations of Hamill, Fisher, and Ford delivering their lines, which goes a long way toward making this right away feel like the most in-canon experience one could possibly have in this universe via any other form of non-cinematic medium. "Out here, I'm just Leia," is a perfect perfect character beat. Moreover, we’ve already got several intriguing seeds of long-arc plot to come. Leia running a black-ops Shadow Council within the Rebellion in order to root out a spy or find a planet to set up the new base is a tremendous idea, even if there is zero suspense as to who she might recruit to join her. The Vader angle is even better, I love the idea of him not knowing who he is and just now feeling initial rumblings, the stirring of familiarity from that name, Skywalker. Just a hell of a ret-con. Lots of solid groundwork laid here. Also, an interesting little aside, Mon Mothma’s reference to it seeming like the stormtroopers were coming out of a factory sent me down a whole tangent, because of course the Rebels would know that the Stormtroopers are just later-gen clone soldiers, right? That seems apparent. But her comment makes it seem like there’s no way that’s going on. Which makes sense if you remember the actual premise of this: Only EPISODE IV counts. Of course, there’s no EMPIRE or JEDI, but you know what? Even better? There’s also no prequel trilogy. No midichlorians or Gungans or even dozens and dozens of episodes of Clone Wars. These characters are being written like none of that happened. Even if it takes place in their past. And I think that’s pretty swell.

I should mention the art. Fine work from Carlos D’Anda and Gabe Eltaeb, who manage to perfectly straddle the line between making the characters resemble the actors without venturing so far over into uncanny or ghastly photorealism that they sacrifice dynamic motion or energy within the panel. I had some concern about that after making my way through forty issues of Jeanty over on the eighth season of BUFFY from this very publisher, but all is well here on that score. The only reason this isn’t a five-star slab of sequential perfection for me boils down to one word. “Literally.” Of course, it’s nothing more than a pet-peeve, but I am so. Damn. Sick of everyone saying “literally” all the time. It’s very much a twenty-first century malapropism, in the same way that “awesome” and “epic” are. It doesn’t even mean anything anymore. Just subtract it from your sentence and not only does your sentence mean the same thing, it’s invariably stronger. I was pretty bummed to see Wood fire one off in the very first panel of this issue. But, you know, it wasn’t a dealbreaker. One got by, that’s cool. Everything else was so spot-on, I was more than willing to make allowances for my own peccadilloes and just roll with it. But then Mon Mothma says it. And then the narration drops a third one toward the end. Talking about Darth Vader. Is it more imposing for the dread Lord of the Sith to make his officers shake with fear or literally shake with fear? Terrible terrible, I don’t understand how a writer with as much experience as Wood, who is so prolific and obviously gifted at his craft can allow three “literally”s to creep into the script of the very first issue of a project of this magnitude. The second one snapped me out of it pretty bad, but the third just had me heckling the pages. Which nobody wants. A disappointing flaw in an otherwise superlative issue.

THE SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #1—It’s pretty good, man. Slott negotiates every beat of OttoParker’s first issue with all the professional acumen and finesse that we’ve come to expect and Stegman/Delgado show up with an energetic style that is reminiscent of Ramos’s hyperkinetic manga-heavy imagery but dialed back just a bit in terms of overemphasized cartooning, a balance that works perfectly for me. This is compelling material. Doctor Octopus has certainly never been more interesting, and I find myself invested in what’s he’s going to do next, how he’s going to straddle the line between who he was and who he’s become. I completely understand why Slott/Wacker elect to give us the last-page reveal this first issue out, before this title bleeds thousands of readers over the course of the next few weeks or months, but it might have been cooler to dole it out just a little bit more, allude to it with a few out-of-character actions of mercy for Otto before going with the full reveal at the end of #5 or #6, wherever the first arc falls. Kudos to the entire creative team, this is already one of the most entertaining Spidey stories in recent memory, and we must remember that it’s really been a hell of a ride since Wacker came on-board.

FANTASTIC FOUR #3—The fifth installment in Fraction’s run is fairly boilerplate FF, meaning we’ve got Ben being grumpy, Johnny playing pranks, Reed lying by omission For The Good Of The Family, Sue saving the day when it really counts and proving for the 593rd time that she’s really the most powerful member of the team, and an unstable planet that looks like an enjoyable New Year’s Day AM field trip but turns out to be nothing more than a “planetary lure for a cosmic predator star-sized consciousness.” Just another day in the life.

1/02/13

NEW AVENGERS #1—Memento mori. “Remember your mortality,” or literally “Remember to die” in the future imperative. Old Hickman is certainly opening up his sister title here with something a bit weightier than just what the hell Luke Cage and Jessica Jones and friends are getting up to.  He builds on a single page way back from that first Bendis/Maleev ILLUMINATI special when T’Challa bails after telling the rest of them that they are getting too big for their britches. We actually get that page in flashback sepia, which I really appreciate because have really not been carrying that one around with me all this time, and then open with a scene that it looks like serves as a catalyst for a reversal of that opinion. And it is The Business. During that brief sojourn in Wakanda toward the end of the FF run, Hickman seemed to immediately have so much fun with both king and country itself that you really wanted him to go back and explore that territory a bit further, and it looks like he’s doing exactly that with this title. Former FF collaborators Steve Epting & Rick Magyar return to the fold with Frank D’Armata on colors to illustrate the story of three of Wakanda’s best and brightest coming of age and the horrible consequences that result. This is basically one of the tightest plotted and beautifully rendered Black Panther issues that I’ve ever experienced and it’s just the very beginning of what’s on the horizon. Don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed Hickman’s graphic design madness more than when he answers to the question “Who answers the call of desperate men?” herein. This kind of reading is immediately addictive and kind of wants to ruin you.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #5—Well, it’s official. In a single arc, Bendis/Immonen/von Grawbadger/Gracia have produced the most memorable and entertaining X-Men arc I’ve read since at least Whedon/Cassaday finally finished up over on ASTONISHING, and frankly, this gives even that a run for its money right out of the gate. They make the return of Jean Grey (albeit the teenage version from long before the adjective “uncanny” became synonymous with “serial mutant soap/space opera”) not the exercise in tedium that it should be by now but instead quite a riveting character study of someone thrown into a terrible situation, having to process all of the awful business that the Marvel 616 has had to throw at Jean Grey since she boarded that shuttle with Peter Corbeau and the X-Men way back in the summer of 1976, our time. While Teen Marvel Girl takes center-stage this issue, Bendis remains completely in control of his ensemble, a conductor with an intimate understanding of his orchestra’s nuances and capabilities. Once again, every single character interaction is pitch-perfect, including and especially those featuring the founding members who have made it to the present and are able to interact with their younger counterparts. And all of this while not only embracing all the convoluted Avengers vs X-Men big event madness that has come before but actually letting that plot drive these mutants toward reactions, emotions, and dialogue that never rings false and remains totally consistent with characters who some of us have been reading about for decades. The art is also nothing less than A-list, Immonen and von Grawbadger’s lines rendered in Gracia’s evocative palette that manages to be breathtaking while not totally drowning out the narrative with its gorgeous lush tones. The Jean Grey double-page splash montage alone, my God. If I was the editor trying to find the colorist for this and Laura Martin wasn’t available, I can’t imagine what a godsend Marte Gracia must have seemed like. An indispensible title in the new Marvel stable. I feel like I’m home, home at last after all these years, and even though Logan changed the name to The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, this is the place where I’ve spent so many months and months and months with characters I adore, watching them live and fight and love and die, all the while training to make themselves the best they can possibly be.

DAREDEVIL: END OF DAYS #4—Just when we can’t up the stakes any more on how bleak and horrible this future really is, they drop the Presidential ticket there on the first page. The Falcon’s veep is Norman Osborn. I guess that’s about right. If it was Harry, none of this would be happening. As absurdly high as this all-star creative team of Bendis/Mack/Janson/Sienkiewicz/Hollingsworth has already raised the bar for themselves with the first three issues, they go us one better right out of the gate with Ben Urich’s keen analyzation of Bullseye’s crime scene, which is a such a meticulous and well-conceived reflection of the former’s character, it almost makes you weep for the horrible bastard. So damn perfect. Fortunately Alex Maleev is on-hand to jostle Urich’s powers of observation honed by a lifetime of slogging through the shit of the 616. And then Turk. I was surprised by how good it was to see him. I’m glad he got his own place. But that last scene. I’m not going to just recap it here because you really have to experience it, but clearly the word “Mapone” is a weapon, right? If the cover to next issue is any indication, it triggers a death-wish for everyone who has thus far heard it. I can’t imagine what set of circumstances could weaponize two syllables to that extent amongst such a varied group of individuals but am completely confident that this team is going to deliver an answer that provides impossible satisfaction. I just hope we all survive the experience.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #8—Spectaular. Nuclear. It’s all been building to this since the first issue, and these pages are from the get-go some of the most scratch-your-eyes-out balls-to-the-wall insanity ever visited upon this shallow mortal plane. I feel like even attempting to summarize the contents of this issue will get me institutionalized by the Google Police or that maybe just running through it all will be the last thing to trigger the spell and I really will scratch my eyes out. I barely made it through the issue. Three times. But, um . . . highlights, maybe? Quick flashes for all of our sakes. Yes, let’s.

1) Nehebu’s hieroglyphic speech is a treasure but I’m struggling with the translation. That second character on Page 2, Panel 2 is an “n,” but there don’t seem to be English alphabet equivalents to the ankh and the dude with one arm raised. AS unlikely as it is, I’m positive this was covered during Hickman’s panel at MorrisonCon and it just hurts my heart.

2) Retasking complete? Who will draw the next 70-something issues of MORNING GLORIES now? He just had a BAY-bee! And THE STUFF OF LEGEND? And, oh shit, this very book?!?!? I guess rumors of a fill-in on the next couple issues are making all kinds of since now. Poor Hickman.

3) An Einstein/Feynman bro enforcer arc would be the best thing ever.

4) Having Yuri & Laika pump up Wernher for the suicide mission is I guess the best thing until the Einstein/Feynman bro enforcer arc.

5) FDR: A.I.’s employment of “horseradish” as an epithet is truly one for the ages.

6) I think Feynman on that last page is standing in for every single reader and maybe even creator there with that reaction to the preceding twenty-four pages. Jesusfuck. And Infinite Oppenheimers ever looming.

PROPHET #32—The first Brandon Graham-less issue of this title is released and, you know I wasn’t really worried, but the quality level doesn’t plummet like you might fear. Simon Roy produces this entire thing by himself aided only by Ed Brisson on letters and it’s yet another origin story, this time of Brother John Ka, a female version of the Prophet clone whose nomenclature apparently does not bow before gender. It’s a fairly straightforward tale with the mad science fiction we’ve come to expect seasoned by a liberal dose of social commentary vis a vis a cloning technocracy vs alpha-based primitives topped off by a nice character moment that I was hoping for but doubted was actually coming. And yet again, another soldier is folded into the band. This book is very exciting, providing serious amounts of mind-bending science pulp month in and month out while organically building toward something greater, accruing narrative weight all the while. This past year, anybody who wants to snort about the way Liefeld draws feet, I just tell them I’m real real grateful to the man for hiring these guys and the ones next book down to relaunch his properties, because these are some consistently damn good comics right here and that is not something that should ever be taken for granted.

GLORY #31—These boys really kick it into high gear here with the whole damn family. Gloriana and her beleaguered troupe finally come face-to-face with her father and the result is far more culinary than everything up to now would lead you to expect. Nanaja continues to steal every scene she’s in with blacked-out curse words even more deadly than all her predatorial fighting acumen (she breaks off seven alone on her first page this issue, possibly a record?). And Ulises Farinas proves more than up to the formidable challenge of dropping in on the middle of all this madness to pencil and ink an eight-page flashback scene with series regular Ross Campbell showing back up at the end to deliver a last page that’s downright cathartic after all of that breakfast nook conversation. At least one character won’t be delivering so much dialogue next month.

FATALE #11—And now, the Brubaker/Phillips/Stewart triumvirate eases back a little and makes themselves comfortable. This is suddenly not a mini-series, or even a collection of mini-series but a monthly. I presume this puts both CRIMINAL and INCOGNITO on indefinite hiatus? That kind of hurts, especially when you think about how much CRIMINAL would have potentially linked across the family dynasties and really opened up by now with another eleven issues in the can, but you know, you’ve got to go where the muse takes you and I’ve certainly enjoyed every issue of this series, as well. This issue is our first stand-alone of three and very reminiscent of those old CREEPY and EERIE EC Comics, I was already thinking, before Brubaker was good enough to cite for me right there in his text-piece. As usual, these guys mine themes and tropes that have been done to death a thousand times and somehow make them sing anew. I mean, if you describe the plot of this story, not really that incredible, seen it all before, but it’s all in the execution here. Masters of their craft. Looking forward to experiencing whatever horror they mined next month. Or for Brubaker to announce a new different series. That would actually be hilarious, suddenly a Borges story, the same creators tunneling down a never-ending series of trapdoors, going on and on, starting new series after new series, never to return to complete any of them. Actually the Borges version of that story would probably be a description of the unwritten final issues of all those series. Okay, I’m going to go write that now.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #34—We head into this book’s hiatus with a stand-alone featuring a couple of relations to characters with whom we’re already familiar. Good Will Bunting’s nephew Gene pays a visit to Felicia Book’s mother Abilena and gets shot full of dimes for his trouble. It’s all perfectly ominous and there’s a short-term prophetic vision that saves someone’s life, but the real payoff this issue is Rafael Albuquerque’s magnificent double-page splash follow-up to the first vision, a montage of characters we know doing things that we haven’t yet seen that is rendered as beautifully as anything within this title’s three-year run and is surely enough to whet readers’ collective appetite until Snyder/Albuquerque/McCaig come roaring back after they get a few issues in the can. It’s exciting to hear this being discussed as a halfway point, it’s honestly never even occurred to me that this thing was ever going to end, but if the storytellers are actively steering the narrative toward a set ending, you know it’s going to be spectacular. Old Scott Snyder has had just a hell of a run at DC these last three years, I suppose it was a good thing there was a shop like Vertigo up and running where he could squeeze his head in the door, there.

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #15—The arrival of Ray Fawkes as co-writer probably signals the beginning of the end for Jeff Lemire’s run, while Mikel Janin & Jeromy Cox’s art remains as clean and beautiful as ever, though still quite a stylistic departure for this stable of Vertigo expatriates (with the exception of Amy Reeder Hadley over on MADAME XANADU, this is actually right in-line with that, stylistically). This run has been entertaining enough, though not quite as devastating as I’d hoped when Lemire took the reins with the announcement that these were his favorite characters to read about as a teen. The adventure component is fine, the plot moving along and enough quippy quips, but it’s been a little light on the in-depth character work that Lemire pours into his graphic novels and SWEET TOOTH and even ANIMAL MAN.

FLASH #15—We open with some strong pages with art by Marcus To, Ryan Winn, and (I presume) Ian Herring. The last time To filled in, he did just fine living up to the very high bar set by this title’s regular art department, but it he raises his game a bit here. Really clean lines. But that’s all set-up for an extraordinary sequence of an unconscious Barry activating his “Speed Mind” and flash-forwarding through a myriad of possibilities as to how the battle with Grodd’s occupying army will play out. And you really have to see it to believe it, feels like I’ll have to burn a thousand words even barely beginning to do this justice, but the short version is that the composition and panel layout on this eight-page run of double-page spreads can hang with the deepest sickness that Williams or Quitely has to offer. We follow three lightning-bolt-shaped threads of probability crackling out of Barry’s mind, colored yellow, red, and blue. These are all no-dialogue montage shots averaging eight to twelve panels each per double-page spread and illustrating the eventual outcome of various tactics and ending when first Barry dies, then Patty dies, then finally when it looks like we might have a workable strategy. The very best part, though, it hit me there on that third double-page splash, right before I turned the page, was that we hadn’t yet seen this issue’s title page sequence and this entire thing, in addition to being an incredible visual depiction of a recent addition to Barry’s powers set, also serves the function of being the most badass glorious lead-up to this issue’s most innovative way yet to work the work our heroes name into the art. This business would have brought a tear to Will Eisner’s eye.

BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN INCORPORATED #6—With every issue, the circle closes and the end nears. I’m wild about this issue’s double-reversal on last month claiming suddenly that Damian isn’t the Third Batman, but oh by the way, here’s a kitty-cat who trusty old Pennyworth just rescued from the animal shelter. That two-panel bit where the cat takes a swipe at Damian, the surprise on the kid’s face followed by the look of love/trust/empathy in the next panel when he names him Alfred and potentially confirms and sets in motion all of the events from the #666 timeline first seen in July 2007, well, let’s just say that it was the very threshold of what I was able to bear at two in the morning in the great state of Texas. Not even counting Bat-Cow closing out the page with a resounding moo. But the real centerpiece of the issue is Talia maneuvering her detective through his paces accompanied by ten stages of understanding the parable of the Zen goatherd. The ninja man-bats versus the Iron Batmen was a particularly nice touch, I thought. And oh right, the Oroboro, Otto Netz’s perpetual energy source. There’s kind of so much shit going on here, it’s easy to lose track of a few things. And then it just . . . it all goes really wrong. I simultaneously don’t know if I can handle six more installments of this and am so wrecked that it’s going to be over.