2/19/14

BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN AND ROBIN #28 —Well, good Lord. I suppose that we will forgive the creators for making this arc three installments longer than what might have previously seen like the perfect conceit. At this point, these guys are dispensing absolutely catastrophic destruction about every two or three pages. That opening huge shot of just our hero in all his fiery glory across Pages Four and Five is only the first example. Panel Three of Page Eight (entire page just over to the right, there) is a crippling piece of storytelling, the depth of the facial expression we get even from behind the cowl, the choice to frame the shot just so, in order to work in the unscarred half of Harvey’s face. What an incredible beat following that previous line of dialogue. And then I’m a huge fan of Batman’s argument for the third side of the coin. Once again, Tomasi digs in like no other. It’s also a wonderful choice to continue to dial the flashback back even further to Bruce of course introducing Harvey and Gilda in the first place before a horrifying-in-hindsight aside re: the McKillen twins. What a stellar three panels of courtship. It’s all we need. These creators move even faster than Harvey. The blue/red shift during the Harvey/Gordon scene is another masterstroke. I wonder if that was in the script or Kalisz. And that last scene with Harvey. So good it renews the faith of even this somewhat jaded reader that it Will Always Count & Really Matter, it won’t be undone by editorial edict a few years down the line. I certainly hope so. And a very nice touch at the end with the signal functioning as the face of the single-sided coin that Batman and Gordon share. This issue does so so much in twenty pages. Some folks feel it necessary to qualify something like this as “the best in mainstream superhero comics,” the kind of faint praise that says, yes, this is the business but it can’t hold up to more literary four-hundred-pages-of-autobiography-by-a-single-gifted-writer/artist type fare, but for my money, this is nothing less than the best the medium is capable of, immaculately framed sequential narrative depicting character-driven plot that continually stuns, surprises, and thrills. These men have been firing at the top of their game since the beginning of their run and are only reaching loftier heights through their continued association with one another.

ANIMAL MAN #28 — In many ways, we hit the climax of this volume here before what’s sure to be a devastating epilogue/coda next month. Lemire & Albuquerque bring the story of Maxine’s quest into the Red to resurrect her brother to a close, all the major conflicts are resolved and the reduced nuclear family is as healed as they seem likely to be, all under the watchful gaze of some sort of extra-dimensional being who I feel like I should maybe recognize? It’s not one of the dude’s from Morrison’s run, have we seen this design here with Lemire? I haven’t actually busted out the entire run and thumbed through, if anybody knows exactly who this guy is supposed to be, if we’ve even already seen him before, certainly please let me know. Next month is going to be incredible, I have no doubt.

WONDER WOMAN #28 — Well, it appears as though Cassandra is going to wind up being just a bit late to the party. That is . . . quite a last page. Azzarello/Chiang/Wilson serve up yet another installment of one of the most entertaining and far-reaching runs starring our favorite Amazon that it has ever been my pleasure to encounter. Tremendous work, all around.

FABLES #138 — I would like to renew my assertion that Russ Braun is an absolute hoss. A stunning level of draftsmanship. Of course, I was thrilled to read the subtitle of this issue, I love it when Willingham drops time-flash recap montages and with the news that this title will be winding down I guess one year from right now, I’ve been wondering what part Geppetto would play in the endgame. Coming in right in character, it appears. Man, I simultaneously don’t want it to be over and can’t wait to read the words THE END.

RETCON BEST OF FOUR WEEKS AGO: THE UNWRITTEN: APOCALYPSE #1 and #2 — Well, somehow my shop didn’t pull the first issue for me, which, I need to go back and see when it actually came out, because it very well might have been Best of Week. After burning everything down at the end of the first volume with a FABLES crossover (oddly enough, I now cannot find my copies of those singles. Just those five, #50-54, gone like they were never there, to the point that I almost started wondering if I’d made up that the whole thing even happened, a radical notion that you can almost get behind, given the content: I wanted it so badly that I wished those comics into being and when I made it to the last page of #54 and put them away, they simply vanished), Carey & Gross do nothing less than walk us up the evolutionary ladder itself, from the void of space to the primordial ooze, single-celled amoebas to double-helixes. And that’s just the first page. The remainder of the issue is a whirlwind narrative tour de force of our hero basically reconstructing himself with, what else, stories serving as the fuel and/or engine. He opens with Aesop’s “The Ant and the Grasshopper” then transitions into Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling” before heading on over to being one of the young in Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” followed by a turn as The Dormouse at Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter’s tea party, concluding with actually harnessing C.S. Lewis’s Aslan’s resurrection to achieve enough power to catalyze his own rebirth. Mike Carey runs through all of this with a dizzying facility of shifting tone that always honors the source material while remaining internally consistent to the mythos that have been building within these own pages. Peter Gross is just as impressive, turning in a virtuoso performance across a full spectrum of styles, opening the Aesop section with sparse inks and actually leaving in his blue-line pencils in several places before moving on to charcoal for Andersen, adding a few tones for Kipling, doing a fair impression of John Tenniel in the Wonderland section, and then bringing in fully rendered figures for the Narnia scene. I should remark upon Page Fourteen, a splash that features a palindromic verse whose meaning is completely changed from beginning to end through the application of altered punctuation and is really a stunning thing to behold. Okay, I just went back and checked and, yeah, this one would have taken it over HAWKEYE #16. Just ridiculous. It seems like Carey & Gross routinely set out to accomplish narrative feats that should be impossible and then knock it out of the park every time. This first issue is pretty much as good as comics get, the creators pushing the form as hard as they can just to see if it will break. But of course, it never does, shifting instead into beautiful new shapes we’ve never seen before but that are immediately familiar and even beloved nonetheless.

(Oh, and #2 is pretty good, too.)

MORNING GLORIES #38 — Ms. Clarkson, naturally. We’re pretty much looking for her around most bends by now. But this time, we go straight dream-logic for our Akiko-centric due to the fact that she’s in a coma. Which certainly gives Spencer/Eisma less narrative transition hoops to jump through, just on to the next thing again and again. When the word “lost” shows up on the next-to-next-to-last page, did anyone else experience a PEE-WEE’S PLAYHOUSE Secret Word type moment? I am really a fan of that pages-of-horizontal-panels heavy-shit montage that has really become a thing this book, every time we hit that layout, you know you’re in for The Business. And that they’re totally going to be much heavier in years to come through the lense of events that haven’t already unfolded. Because Ian hasn’t made it to The Cylinder yet. I think? This book huuuuurts my brain.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #25 — The first thing I thought when I saw the cover was, “Who the hell is Leandro Fernández?” followed immediately by, “I guess he’s a total fucking badass like everyone else they’ve ever gotten to draw this book. One could always argue that it’s the benefit of Dave Stewart’s colors but I haven’t been feeling this way the entire run, but what I’m trying to say is that this art looks like Mignola in all of the best ways, terrific use of shadow and sparse linework while conveying maximum dynamic action. I really love that Page Six with the double-shot of Bêlit, you certainly don’t need any words to get knocked down by all of that. Wood does once again break period with Conan’s anachronistic single-beat “Hey,” on Page Nine. I don’t feel like the guy has ever ever talked that way and trying to impose an updated vernacular on him is pretty blasphemous. I want to letter up a parody run of these where he’s all like, “Hey, gurl,” and “Bro, you know I’ll cut you, Bro?” And of course we wouldn’t be good to go without another goddamn abuse of “literally” from Thessy. I swear. It’s not enough to wreck the magnificence of the final sequence, though. Conan burning the Tigress down to the bottom of the ocean off an unnamed beach, burying his queen and the vast treasure that they have accumulated is a grand, romantic gesture that underscores the tragedy of the entire doomed affair. It has been a journey in which I have been glad to take part. I do hope that there will be continued publication somewhere of Jim & Ruth Keegan’s excellent THE ADVENTURES OF TWO-GUN BOB: TRUE STORIES FROM THE LIFE OF ROBERT E. HOWARD. What a man.

ZERO, VOLUME ONE — My good friend Matt Doman has been singing the praises of this book for the last little bit now, and it was such an alarming departure from his perpetual stumping for SAVAGE DRAGON that when I saw this first trade for the low low price of nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, I had to check it out. And I’m glad that I did. Created by Ales Kot of WILD CHILDREN fame, ZERO starts out in near-future espionage mode with a dash of superpowers and science fiction thrown in. To spice things up, every issue has a different artist, more often than not folks I haven’t heard of, though Tradd Moore does show up for the second issue. This revolving artist conceit could easily backfire every month but it’s almost the book’s strongest feature due to the talented crop of folks Kot brings in. The bittersweet part is when you’re almost done with an issue and realize you’re about to say goodbye to a style that you’ve really grown to love. I’m certainly going to seek out that Morgan Jeske from #4, he or she has a serious Paul Pope thing going on. As much as anyone else can, at any rate. Kot makes some interesting decisions pacing this thing out. The first issue isn’t nearly as devastating as VELVET’s, for example, we simply jump right in the middle of a mission with a couple of scene-breaks to check out our eponymous lead’s handlers handling each other. Michael Walsh’s art is terrific, but I’m honestly not sure if the whole deal would have been enough to hook me into picking up #2. Well, I actually probably would have anyway just because of Moore’s involvement, but my point is that there are narrative elements that are introduced after #1 that I find much more compelling, namely Zero’s upbringing/indoctrination and his relationship with fellow agent Mina Thorpe. Which, #3 messed me up pretty good, I have to tell you. I’m still holding out hope that the rest of her will show up alive here in a little while. And I will say that the pacing levels out to perfection by the end of this first volume, that is exactly where you want to end your trade because I will be happy to pay fifteen American dollars for the next five issues now that I’m hooked. This is really compelling excellent brand-new creator-owned material. Image is killing me.

SAVAGE DRAGON #193 — Well, it’s official, as Malcolm Dragon takes over his daddy’s book, opening with an action-packed five-page flashback showing that he had the guts even way back when. But that’s nothing compared to what it’s going to take to make it through college! They need me to write trade dress. Larsen of course has the dynamic Kirby energy thing down pat, but what is sometimes underrated in discussing this book is the terrific natural dialogue uttered by even bit-players, everything feels very organic with total verisimilitude. Which is no mean feat, considering the physical appearance of the lead. And just when the present-day portion of the issue is starting to feel perhaps too grounded in the relative mundanity of real college life, the horror of Tantrum appears to forever scar the reader. If not his character design alone, then the final fate of the chest-baby. Disturbing in all of the best ways. It was very cool of Larsen to drop such a paradigm shift here in this issue that isn’t a round number or anniversary, a statement to remember that every single issue should be as spectacular as possible. Hold nothing in reserve every single issue, every single page.

UNCANNY X-MEN #017 — This could basically be a new volume of THE NEW MUTANTS, and there is nothing in the world wrong with that. Bendis wisely lets the gang of students take center-stage for the entire issue as they are dropped off and forced to fend for themselves in the middle of some future-relic from either Morrison’s run or Remender’s X-FORCE, I forget. This allows for Bendis to flex his considerable ensemble chops and provide a gang of characterization in just twenty pages. And Chris Bachalo. I mean, the guy has arguably never been better, and that’s really saying something. That circling camera-angle thing he does across Pages Two and Three alone is a serious master-class in staging team dynamics. I mean, it’s the classic Bendis trope/complaint of a scene where a group of people is standing around talking but then Bachalo elevates it through expert usage of layout and evoking emotion/acting from his characters through body language. Terrifying. However many years Bendis’s run winds up lasting, it won’t be long enough. This is still nothing short of spectacular. Bring on Marco Rudy!

DAREDEVIL #036 — And so ends this critically acclaimed and all-around-beloved third volume of Daredevil. It’s as straight-ahead and high-quality as we have grown to expect with all the usual suspects knocking it out. I particularly enjoyed the Easter eggs on the cover, the “other Murdock papers,” in particular. I do wish that the Mighty Marvel Hype Machine would have kept the particulars on the next volume under wraps before this one hit because it would have been really nice to read this issue and actually be the least bit surprised when making it to the last page instead of having it plastered all over the Internet two months ago. So, that let the air out of this ending a little bit but I’m certainly interested to see where Waid & co take things from here. And will probably even pay the All-New All-NOW! cover price of $3.99 a pop for the opportunity to find out.

2/12/14

BEST OF WEEK: NGUYEN/FRIDOLFS DOUBLE-SHOT PART I: BATMAN #28 — Wow, from the past to the future. In a successful bid to seemingly never fulfill my wish of telling stories about Batman set in the present, Snyder enlists writing partner James Tynion IV and LIL’ GOTHAM cohorts Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs on art to throw down really just a tremendous glimpse into the near-future world of BATMAN: ETERNAL. They really channel Mignola here, his bold economy of lines that are never over-rendered but always exactly what you need. I was already optimistic about ETERNAL's debut but am now wildly excited about it. I won’t go into any of the reveals but I will say that the smile Selina throws Bruce over her left shoulder is both incredible cartooning and a note-perfect character beat. I am surprised that more people aren’t freaking out about the last page, as well. The quality of this issue bodes well for the future of Gotham. Our enjoyment of it, at least, if not the fate of its heroes.

BEST OF WEEK: NGUYEN/FRIDOLFS DOUBLE-SHOT PART II: BATMAN: LIL’ GOTHAM #11— But then what’s so tremendous about this week is that we also get the penultimate installment of this Nguyen/Fridolfs masterpiece, which is never better than when thrown into stark contrast with their work over on the main-continuity property. The first page ends with one of those meta- lines that so often fall flat and too self-aware/winking-at-the-audience but that lands here with heartbreaking finality. And since father and son are off to visit the Al-Ghuls, of course it isn’t long before they’re walking through the desert and we are in the presence of the “hairy-chested love-god” of the O’Neil/Adams era. I could honestly call out something from just about every other panel as noteworthy in its own right. The single exchange of dinner conversation between Batman and R’as Al-Ghul, for example. This book is paced and executed to perfection on every level. And then in the second story, a bunch of Batmen from parallel universes team up to fight Clock King. I am going to miss this book so much.

KICK-ASS 3 #6 — I had to get the terrific McCaig cover riffing on The Saturday Evening Post. We open with an extended Hit-Girl flashback that provides a few more pages of Big Daddy, which of course must now and forever be read in the voice of Nicolas Cage. It’s pretty apparent that Millar is hearing it, as well, the tone is a bit different from the first volume. It looks like it’s going to end very badly for Dave, but I have to say, I’m a lot less worried about Mindy, even with old McLovin’ holding a gun to her head for the cliffhanger.

FATALE #20—Brubaker opens with some Nietzche and when all is said and done, this might be the most impressive installment of this series thus far. The suicide montage is pretty rough going. We certainly seem to be heading into the home-stretch here. It will be interesting to see if we stay in the present from here on in or if Brubaker’s got one last flashback up his sleeve to give everything greater weight and import. Am finding it hard to believe that I’ve already read twenty of these, feels like it just started coming out.

STAR WARS #14—Opening with a dream about Obi-Wan is a masterstroke. Very effective work. The elite squad of Stormtroopers trying to run a mutiny on Vader was hilarious. This was a really solid little two-shot arc here illustrating how horrible and terrifying it is to run support for the most famous Dark Lord of the Sith. Hard to believe it was a fill-in before we seriously get back to it next month.

ASTRO CITY #9 — The Winged Victory-with-a-side-order-of-Samaritan-&-New Confessor arc soars through its penultimate installment with our heroine taking advice from a member of the Council of Nike while her boyfriend wrecks the Bat-Crypt. Consistently entertaining storytelling by masters of the craft who always favor substance over flash.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #023 — Am I the only one who had no idea Gladiator’s first name was Kallark until all of these shenanigans got underway? I do like how Bendis gets Kitty back on point in her second scene this issue with her calling herself out for not seeing this coming. You are right to do so, Professor K, but we forgive you. Hilarious beat with Groot starting to freak out Teen Bobby. And Kitty referencing the end of Whedon/Cassaday’s ASTONISHING, a solid bit of continuity from Brother Bendis. And what an incredible last page, there. The art team of Immonen/von Grawbadger/Gracia continues to consistently throw down some of the most beautiful pages on the rack today.

AVENGERS #026—Hickman loves his A.I.M. action, which takes an interesting turn this issue as the new generation of adaptoids becomes self-aware pretty much right away. The invasion-of-infinite-parallel-universes action from the sister book further encroaches in upon this title. Once again, I got so engaged in the action as it was unfolding that even though there were multiple _____ DAYS/HOURS AGO captions, I was still shocked when the adaptoid went all MAN OF STEEL on the other Hank Pym’s neck. Hickman’s run on these titles remains compelling in the short-term singles format and downright riveting when taken as a whole.

2/05/14

ACTION COMICS #28 — Pak & Kuder continue to knock it out of the park here as The Adventures of Clark & Lana kicks into subterranean mode. This might be my favorite issue of this short run thus far, which is no mean feat because they’ve lost the element of surprise, now I’m expecting the serious greatness. We get another serious dose of spot-on characterization/interaction between our two leads. Of course, making Lana the dominant point of diplomatic interaction is perfect but I in particular dug the way that Kuder staged the scene of them changing clothes in the same room, the way he played down the sexy and conveyed a sense of familiarity more in line with siblings. A nice bit of restraint before he blows the barn doors off with the serious action toward the end of the issue, what a run of dynamic splash pages! Once again, these guys perfectly balance everything that makes an entertaining single issue starring the original superhero. And Pak is even good enough to set up the stabbing-in-the-back on the last page so that new readers won’t call bullshit. This has shot right up the list to one of my favorite monthly releases, so glad and grateful to feel that way about this character again.

DETECTIVE COMICS #28 — Man, I’m bummed that this run is already coming to an end. A year and a half went by too fast! This is simply more of the rock-solid greatness we’ve come to expect with Aaron Lopresti doing a terrific job pinch-hitting for Jason Fabok, who has presumably been hard at work on he and Layman’s last issue since the moment he got his hands on the script. Lopresti is a great choice, there’s barely a hiccup between his art style and Fabok’s. Of course, our hero has a plan and battles his way back into the fold with the assistance of a kiss from Poison Ivy, but there is some bad news waiting for him on the last page. Not reading the tie-ins served me well in this case; I presume that the stars of those titles all underwent whatever circumstances that led them to this point in their own respective books but just having them all show up here like this right there at the end with no previous set-up makes for an especially surprising cliffhanger.

FOREVER EVIL #5 — Well, we had to wait until halfway through the issue for someone to get dismembered, so I hope everyone was okay with that. And Luthor made the point to satisfactory effect before “Waynes tend to DIE.” Even the lettering is ham-handed. Finch/Friend/Oback continue to produce beautiful pages with all kinds of intricate linework that only tapers off there on a couple toward the very end (thinking specifically of the shot of the five heavies standing their ground against Batman). And oh no! Steven Moffat’s Crack In The Universe turns out to be the Big Bad that destroyed the CSA’s universe. Paging The Doctah!

TRILLIUM #6 — JesusChristGod, what a heartbreaking opening scene. Jeff Lemire drops the hammer hard in those first five pages, proving once again that he is one of the most accomplished storytellers of his generation. But, “oh no,” indeed! This issue once again uses a variation on the flip-book convention we’ve been hanging out with since the first issue to string the reader along a dual narrative in which Nika and William negotiate the blended conceits of each other’s time periods to get back to Peru where presumably all will be set to rights. The final page once again tosses out our expectations and leaves us stuck waiting for another four weeks. I kind of hate the future people who are going to read this in trade. Though what a ride they’ll have. Very interested to see what further flip-book madness Lemire has up his sleeve for the final couple of issues. Just when you think he’s done it all, he comes up with a new permutation.

CATALYST COMIX #8 — Man, I just like the way Dark Horse books feel, the cover stock, the way they’re bound. Casey and company round the home-stretch as we come upon our final round of cliffhangers for our catalytic characters! Ulises Farinas maintains his tradition of juxtaposing very sparse linework of characters on tight shots with extremely detailed panels of presumably greater import. Of the varied tones that Joe Casey hits in his narration across the different stories, I dig what he’s got going with Frank Wells most, just the right dash of Kirby. And that’s before the fourth page of this installment, yoW! Dan McDaid starts slinging thunderbolts! The secret of Frank Wells! All leading in to the penultimate installment of “Amazing Grace,” a panoramic explosion of light, sound, and action! Brad Simpson, the anchor for this entire terrific anthology, in particular blows it up here. And Paul Maybury turns in his best pages yet, tethering the unfathomable extra-d madness of The Reaver Swarm to a two-dimensional page that we can contemplate from the safety of our three-dimensional biological constructs. This mini-series has been something special since the beginning and it looks like it is going to go out with one hell of a bang, or a “bigger bang” if you believe the hyperbolic next-issue copy, and how could you doubt it, Catalytic Convert?!?

SECRET #5 — Ryan Bodenheim cranks it up a bit here, really strong and bold linework throughout. That little 5 on Grant’s chin is a bit distracting, though. But not nearly so much as Rus Wooton’s near-constant always-maddening emboldening and italicizing. Those four pages of This Is The Plan montage aside, folks can barely get out a couple of sentences before all of that malarkey kicks in. I know I keep going on about it but it keeps happening and really really preventing me from any chance of connecting to the material because I keep reading all of these emphases with ham-handed overacting and diabolical music trumpeting forth just about every other word balloon. Duh-duh-DUUUUUH!

THE FOX #4 — Had to get the Mack cover. This is more Kirbytastic dynamic action courtesy of Haspiel & Waid. This series really is the antidote to continuity-heavy corporate books full of dismemberment, if that kind of thing gets you down. Also, very cool to have The Fox crossover with The Shield for the final issue. Though they seem to be two different adventures based on the disparity of final-panel dialogue. I think? We’ll see.

BEST OF WEEK: MARVEL KNIGHTS: SPIDER MAN #5 — Nothing less than an absolute tour de force. This series has been nothing but thunder from Page One but it is quite a thing to see Marco Rudy put the pedal all the way down on the floor and roar in past the finish line. I haven’t been keeping count, but I guess Peter fought a couple dozen of his scheduled ninety-nine foes in the first four issues? Rest assured that Rudy ensures that the remainder of bad guys are each and every one accounted for in this final installment, the majority of whom are found in a single double-page spread that features three horizontal panels across the length of the two pages wherein no less than nine Peter Parkers are going batshit insane against a massive crowd of villains and, really, there have got to be more than seventy-something dudes in just this spread alone. Rudy improbably accomplishes this without seeming flashy or like he’s showing off, this is just what’s happening on this page, Spider-Man is fighting Everybody Else. Rudy’s explorations into JHWIIIesque layouts are intensified this issue by the fact that he apparently rolled up and smoked all nine issues of the seventh volume of David Mack’s KABUKI: THE ALCHEMY while he was painting parts of this thing, there’s this deal in the middle section where there are a few pages in a row where all the panels are fixed within the shadow of Wilson Fisk that is straight Mack in all the best ways, but my favorite part of the entire issue is that Rudy’s got this really lush watercolor bleed style going on, which is particularly cool with the Klimt allusion that serves as a bookend for the issue. I’m thinking Rudy’s got to be responsible for the full color on those sections? Val Staples certainly brings the justice on the “normal” sequential panels and of course we wouldn’t be here without Matt Kindt’s story, but make no mistake, Marco Rudy is the star of this show, this is the point where he graduates from promising penciler on Red Circle comics and alternate-to-Yanick-Paquette-who-can-more-than-hold-his-own (no mean feat, there) to a marquee name in his own right, one to be reckoned with and who will command sales due to nothing more than his attachment to a project. This was a terrific ride and it will only read better in trade in one furious ad-free rush. Highly recommended.

WOLVERINE #1 — Ryan Stegman is a beast. There’s no getting around that. And maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t believe the degree to which I miss Alan Davis/Mark Farmer/Matt Hollingsworth and how much less engaged I am with this narrative following their departure. Paul Cornell isn’t helping by introducing new characters with names like Pinch and Fuel. Ninja and Heavy? I mean, come on. He’s still got enough of a line into Logan that I’m interested to see where things head from here, but this volume has got a hell of a lot to live up to.

NEW AVENGERS #014 — We join our heroes of 616 in tuning in to yet another doomed permutation of their merry band, the gang from Earth-2319, a charming little place that has weathered four Ages of Apocalypse and both Braddocks assuming the mantle of Captain Britain. The B-plot is essentially Stephen Strange selling his soul for ultimate power, which seems like a pretty rough arrangement for Bendis to walk back. Bianchi’s lush painted style is a terrific fit for all of these dramatic goings-on, especially Alternate Reed Richards sacrificing himself to ensure that Alternate Victor von Doom lives one page longer than he would have otherwise, which should bring a tear to the eye of any trench-embedded True Believer.

BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE #6 — And so Volume 4 comes to an end. What a tremendous run. It’s a shame that Becky Cloonan didn’t write her own script, making every story of this final issue the product of a single writer/artist would have been a pretty cool little conceit on the way out. Cliff Chiang comes out absolutely swinging with a story featuring a young Dick Grayson Robin’s instrumental role in capturing Clayface. As much love and respect as Chaing gets, it isn’t close to enough. I mean, man. Olly Moss and Ms. Cloonan turn in a tale about the aftermath of a one-night stand with our Young Master Wayne that draws a somewhat disturbing parallel between his knocking boots and knocking the shit out of bad guys. I’m not really okay with Batman sexually fetishizing his run-of-the-mill nocturnal back-alley activities. Which seems like kind of a hypocritical sentence to type, but you see what I mean. I’ve never seen Dave Taylor’s work. The guy is a hell of a draftsman, though I could use a bit more shadow for balance, particularly in a story featuring this character. Dude’s got a nice European flavor happening, though, to be sure. Adam Hughes delivers by far my favorite story of the issue, a tour de force revolving around Selina Kyle (who else?) that does terrific work mining the emotional content of one of the Caped Crusader’s most interesting relationships. And that’s just the writing, the guy is one of the best illustrators in the business, accept no substitutes. The final story of this volume is by Dave Johnson, of Azzarello/Risso covers and RED SON fame. It’s . . . a pretty dark note to end on, the content of the story belied by the clean and even wholesome good-girl style that Johnson adopts. It is always wonderful when it turns out that the master illustrators can produce compelling plots as well, and this issue proves that in spades. I’m going to miss getting to read these every month and eagerly await the next product of Mark Chiarello’s editorial greatness. For Archie Goodwin, forever.

1/29/14

BEST OF WEEK: UNCANNY AVENGERS #016 — Man, now this is just the real deal, right here. I don’t care how long it takes to come out in between issues, this series always feels like a massively big production, every issue an event in its own right. The three deaths from last issue are not as of yet undone and we get Thor beating the hell out of one of the Apocalypse Twins, always good fun. As stellar as the rest of the issue is, the last page of the book alone is enough to kick it up to BEST OF WEEK. Kirby as hell!

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #011.NOW — Haven’t been picking this up, but then Bendis went and x’d his books over and of course Sara Pichelli is brilliant. The line about nostalgia and the X-Men being “mad, selfish children who never learn from their mistakes” assumed a fairly meta- quality, I thought. As someone who hasn’t read a page of this since the first issue, I found it completely accessible and a well-done counterpoint to last week’s ALL-NEW NOW X-MEN .NOW. Looking forward to seeing Bendis slam these two teams together and glad I picked this one up to check in with these folks first.

INHUMANITY #002 — Sooooo, this was supposed to just be a Medusa one-shot but now it’s the ostensible second issue of this two-issue series before Fraction just bails to keep slamming out the creator-owned glory and then we start in with a NEW #1! with Soule & JoeMad next month. That is some editorial confusion more in line with what seems like is happening over across the street, there. Just taken on its own merits, this issue, let’s see, we’ve got the talented Nick Bradshaw and Todd Nauck both inking their own pencils and then also getting the help of two other inkers. This is all right. Not great. Fraction doesn’t really do much of a job selling us on why the Inhumans deserve this sudden push (other than Marvel Studios will probably never get the rights to X-MEN/FF/SPIDER-MAN back from Fox). Dude’s heart is not in it and it really shows. I mean, the last page of this is our previously titular protagonist in bed weeping for her lost husband and son. That’s an entire page of Medusa crying because she misses her dudes. What’s the take-away from that? I thought Fraction was supposed to be advocating for the whole empowered female protagonists deal with ODY-C and what not?

BLACK SCIENCE #3 — Remender & Scalera are really firing on all cylinders with this one, advancing the action forward a bit but providing even more entertainment via two four-page flashback sequences bookending the issue and setting us up with quick glimpses of our characters’ status quos immediately before Everything Went Wrong, which turns out to be a great trick, we’re already invested in the people at this point and the scenes unfold with a much greater degree of tension than they would have if they had just been the first eight pages of #1. Scalera & White continue to provide staggering vistas at the drop of a hat but the most wonderful thing about this issue is probably Remender coining the term “dimensionaut,” which I really kind of hate myself for not thinking of first but am certainly delighted to see employed to such tremendous effect here.

EAST OF WEST #09 — Man, Hickman and crew are really playing the long-game here as we have another issue with only five pages featuring our ostensdistracting at best but am resigned to it. This series almost surely makes a better read in trade when you can digest larger chunks of it in a single sitting but the singles are such pretty no-ads dramatic double-pages-of-white packages that I couldn’t quit now if I wanted to.

ible protagonist and the remainder of the book developing John Freeman, the crown prince of (I think it’s) the Union, the seventh nation of former slaves that was born out of all the chaos of the Civil War. As graphic-happy as Hickman is, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to include the map of the reconfigured former United States of America in at least issues that deal with nations and characters with whom we haven’t spent any time. This is all moderately compelling stuff, of course Dragotta keeps knocking it out of the park. I still find ALL of the italics and bold and italics/bold

SAGA #18 — All right, this one really really did it for me, brought everything together in a way that seemed completely natural and made me grateful to be along for the ride. We get a secret origin for Lying Cat, a reboot for Prince Robot IV, it turns out The Will isn’t really his name and he has a sister (her offhand comment about introducing him to his last girlfriend is a deft, dense, and otherwise lovely piece of single-line characterization), and then that last shot. Man. That last shot. I have made no secret of, while mainly enjoying this book for the most part thus far, completely not relating to everyone falling all over themselves proclaiming this the Greatest Book Ever in the History of the Industry but the way BKV negotiates that reveal on the last page combined with the glorious art that Fiona Staples has been delivering since #1, Page One suggests that the next phase of this title is going to be much much better than what has gone before and will probably have me as a member of the adoring masses, cheering louder than most of them. A really beautiful piece of work.

FABLES #137 — Young/old/wise Winter is a hell of an interesting character to just pop up here recently, Willingham has been really dialed in to her voice from the get-go and it shows. The line about checking all the worlds to make sure there’s no one stronger than Mommy just cut right into me. And things are really progressing along at an interesting clip with Rose’s Round Table, as well as with the not-that-slow-burn plot thread of Bigby’s potential restoration. The finale’s still a year out, but I’m already feeling the future-nostaglic tug, am really going to miss this one.

BATMAN AND ROBIN ANNUAL #2—Well, we all know how crushing last year’s effort was, and I will admit that I didn’t see how Tomasi and company would be able to pull it off, given that their lead character has been killed between now and then. Leave it to them to simply bring him back up off the bench with a flashback framing sequence so that we still get our dose of Damian goodness, even if most of the issue is all about the first Robin. I mean, the first page alone is an instant classic. This is all about Tusk, a villain with whom I’m unfamiliar (if this isn’t his first appearance, which it certainly feels like) and who has an immediate and serious grudge against our original Boy Wonder. Doug Mahnke delivers his usual top-shelf sequential work throughout. The story is perfectly satisfying when taken on its own merits. However, when held up against the pretty stunning glory of what has gone before in this title under Tomasi’s pen, it doesn’t just knock my lights out like I was hoping. There’s nothing wrong with it but it’s all a pretty standard boilerplate affair. Young Robin has a first night out with Batman, bristles under the fascist yoke of his mentor, disobeys orders, gets fired, proves himself, and is eventually accepted back into the fold. The other thing that I’m the least bit unclear about but fairly certain: did Damian go back and perform a stealth wetwork op on Tusk? That is certainly the implication from the resolution of the framing sequence but the reaction, or rather non-reaction, of Bruce, Dick, and Alfred lands a bit strangely. “Oh, he went back and killed Dick’s first nemesis, quietly disposed of the body, and left this trophy hidden up here above the ceiling. That vicious little maniac. That scamp. Oh, Damian!” I’m not sure, maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I don’t see an alternate take on it at all. All told, still better executed (pun intended) than most Batman stories, but Tomasi has me trained to settle for nothing less than four-and-a-half or five stars of white-hot brilliance pretty much every time out now.

1/22/14

BATMAN #27 — All right, this one won me back over. I’ve been thinking that we’ve been languishing for too long here in the Zero Year and feeling like as immaculately crafted as every page has been, it’s been past time to get back to the present day where there are higher stakes. But Snyder has been slowly building something, and here it reaches critical mass as the creators finally get around to paying homage to that time in YEAR ONE when the GCPD did their very best to perforate the Caped Crusader, which of course makes for a jawdropping bit of business as staged by Capullo. The resolution of that encounter comes across as both unexpected and the only way that it could have happened in hindsight. Later in the book, Gordon delivers a monologue that does a really effective job of tying together the whole retcon of him being the beat cop who caught the case of the Waynes’ murder and it resonates really well, justifies the whole deal in a way that I had until now strongly felt was lacking. We also see The Riddler come into his own here, as well, with a more logical explanation for his motivations than I have ever personally run across. And really, that one Frank Miller shot where the silhouette is backlit by the lightning over Alfred’s caption about making them all bearing witness, that might be the single greatest panel Capullo has drawn in two and a half really stunning years' worth of issues.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #27 — This issue also spends a fair chunk of time in the early days of caped crusading as we dial the clock back even further past the origin of Two-Face in order to witness the evolution of Harvey Dent from legal-system-gaming defense attorney to the doomed Apollonian district attorney we all know and love. Peter Tomasi subverts the present-day antics about as far as he can with our hero and McKillen and Two-Face all momentarily on the same side. As usual, the panels in this are a Masters class in sequential storytelling with Patrick Gleason framing every shot in the way that most optimally tells the story but never in a flashy or overt manner. Invisible directing. And of course, his cohorts Mick Gray and John Kalisz once again make his lines sing. This remains one of the most compelling and high-quality books of The New 52 since Day One. Really, these four here this week are the champs of the entire lot, have all been cooking with fire from the get-go and held on to the same creative team with the exception of the succession of kickass artists blasting through the following series.

ANIMAL MAN #27 — Dire dire times here in The Red as we barrel on toward the conclusion of this series. Rafael Albuquerque continues to absolutely knock this business out of the park. And he even quit signing all of his badass splash pages, or at least I didn’t notice if he did, which is just as good. Jeff Lemire manages to find a way to once again ratchet up the stakes and make the reader feel true concern over the fate of these characters. It’s going to be sad to say goodbye to this one but also very satisfying to reach an organic conclusion to this story.

WONDER WOMAN #27 — Dear Lord, Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson produce good-looking art for this series. These pages are stunning. And Azzarello doesn’t let up, continuing to weave a tale that is vast in scope and better measured in years than in these monthly installments and that has much more to do with Greek mythology than Justice Leagues or superheroes. Quality work, all around. And just when things can’t get any better, a minotaur gimp shows up. So, we’re basically all good here.

CHEW #39 — The Page Three trapdoor into Amelia’s novel is pretty much the greatest thing that has happened in this series. Well, POYO!!!! notwithstanding. Whether or not that CCP on the door of the detective’s car means what I think it does. But the glory doesn’t stop there, Olive’s turn impersonating her father and confiscating the psychedelic chogs induces a trip leading to a final page that makes me very glad to have been so wrong in a review of one of a previous issue of this series. The conclusion of this arc is going to be a hell of a thing.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #24 — I guess we’re going to get an epilogue here, I mean, I know we are, but this issue is, in most of the ways that matter, the climax of this entire run. And it delivers on every level. Of course, the art is stellar, that’s never been an issue, but detractors of Wood’s take on Conan (and if you’re someone who’s putting the words “emo” and “Conan” in the same sentence, I want to point out that you’re almost certainly doing more harm to Robert E. Howard’s legacy than any perpetrated by the writer of these pages) will find not only plenty of requisite carnage herein but also an answer to why our hero has been acting this way. Because for all his bluster and braggadocio and battle-axe thunder, this is the character at a pivotal time in his life and the ending of this story in particular turns out to be a massive influence on the development and codification of everything that is core to his being. We can’t hold it against the character for not acting like he should in #5 when he doesn’t become who we think we know until after #25. You can cite primary text all you like, but I haven’t hit that. On its own merits, this story succeeds in depicting the Cimmerian in the happiest years of his young life, and the creators paint such a vivid picture that it is all the more heartbreaking when they are ripped away from him, as we know they must be.

PRETTY DEADLY #4 — This was the first one that made total sense to me on the first pass through. Which isn’t a dig, I just think I’m getting much more acclimated to the rhythms of this crazy fever-dream. Rios/Bellaire continue to produce pages of great depth and thunderous beauty. Kelly Sue gives us a hell of a final page to end on and then one-ups herself once again in the back-matter by invoking Fraction and Gaiman as they attempt to trap the ephemeral process of writing in words, always a dicey endeavor but I’m certainly thrilled to read about what they have to say.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #022.NOW — It really is a funny thing how whatever latest marketing research the folks at Marvel have in the can says it’s a good idea to just throw a big white #1 that’s even bigger than the book’s logo up in the top right corner and that that will move a few thousand more units. Even if this is the twenty-second issue of the book. Or twenty-second-nowth issue! Ah, they’re probably right. Funny, though. Okay, so what we have here is the not-that-long-but-still-greatly-awaited return of our A-list art team just in time for a special-jumping-on issue in which the first half of the book is Teen Scott and Teen Jean having it out in the kitchen with poor dreamboat Teen Warren caught in the middle before the Shi’ar try to blow up a RUN-DMC-rhymin’ Teen Bobby Drake while in pursuit of the aforementioned Teen Jean. They take her and leave and then the Guardians of the Galaxy show up in a gorgeous double-page splash, just in time for this arc to be collected in hardcover by the time they make their cinematic debut in May, I suspect. While that summary might make this sound relatively light on plot, every single page is laid out and rendered and colored to such perfection that it really is a treat to thumb through this thing more than once. However, Bendis has a pretty serious misfire on characterization with the much beloved Professor K, who completely loses her shit and spends half a page screaming about what could the Shi’ar POSSibly want with Jean and how could they have known she was here, etc? Did Bendis think that was a plot-hole that needed to be addressed? We all know the Shi’ar’s beef with Jean Grey. If he wants to burn a panel having Kitty catch up a confused X-23/New-Readers about the five billion souls she ate up in the D’bari system that one time in 1981 right before Kitty joined up, that would be fine, but there is no way in the world that this should have caused her to freak out with incredulity. Those aliens have got a genetic matrix set for Jean’s DNA code and when it finally went off, they came and got her. No problem. One other thing, Teen Hank’s chalkboard at the first seemed like it might have a bunch of Easter eggs for what’s coming in the next little bit, the way Bendis had Tony Stark do in, I want to say, the fifth issue of his AVENGERS reboot (first used by Johns in 52, seems like), but the only thing of real note that I found is almost funny. There in the bottom right corner it says that “Dark Phoenix Dies . . . Again.” They’re really verging on, if not straight up crossing over into self-parody here. But I bet that issue where she dies again gets a nice new #1 up at the top of its cover, too.

BEST OF WEEK: HAWKEYE #16 — How great that we didn’t wait on Aja to finish up #15 but just went ahead and jammed this out. I certainly don’t mind. And here, wow, if the Page One isn’t screaming Brian Wilson/PET SOUNDS at you, that first panel on Page Two will certainly get the job done. A case like this is a perfect fit for Kate’s West Coast avenging and not that surprising, given Fraction’s well-documented sonic sensibilities. I do have to say that I’m not sure where a girl raised as a Manhattan socialite (because her dad is in publishing, right? I’m not making that up?) picked up the “y’all.” Just because your wife is from Texas doesn’t mean that your best female characters should talk like her, Fraction. Though the Lucas reference is spot-on. “Libarry” is typo’d on the first panel of the next page. I really dig Annie Wu’s interpretation of Kate, as much of a mark as both Aja and McKelvie have both put on her of late, I kind of can’t remember what any other version looks like when I’m going through these pages. Love her Bryson-hedge-as-phone-booth costume-change in particular. More clever shout-outs to Sharon Tate and The Champions one was actually laugh-out-loud hilarious. The image of The Bjösendurber in the wading pool is one for the ages. Kate’s facial expression after Bryson calls out the contents of the acetate master recorded on 5/8/80 by just eyeballing it is a masterstroke of cartooning. And I actually got choked up at the end, love how they left it entirely to us, the song playing in my head was indeed beautiful. And conjured up from all this, so, many thank yous to all involved. Sorry to see Wacker leave, have really enjoyed his style on every project of his I’ve picked up. I guess we’ll get some swell cartoons out of it.

AVENGERS #025 — I need to quit getting excited when I see the name Martin on the cover of one of these because it never winds up being Laura. Not that I’ve got anything against Frank, but come on. Hickman dials up the parallel-universe shenanigans herein and even manages to work in a permutation of Bendis riffage by bringing in a crew of All-New/Actually-Original Avengers. Only with a twist! And I am really not a fan of the old crazy-opening-scene-cutting-to-X-AMOUNT-OF-DAYS/HOURS-EARLIER trope that BSG absolutely beat to death wherein we spend the entire installment just leading up to that nutty time that the writer opened with, but this time the remainder of the issue is so engaging that when we finally get caught up, I had been carried away enough that I hadn’t spent the entire time figuring out how we were going to get to that craaaazy opening and when we made it back to that dead Avenger’s body, it was definitely a cool moment, everything fitting into place, there. Deftly executed. No pun intended. Sal Larroca draws a pretty iconic version of Thor, but his likeness of Clark Gregg’s Coulson there on the last page is downright uncanny.

FF #016 — And so we bring it all to an end. Scott Lang has figured out the three axes of manipulating Pym particles and it is apparently a big enough deal to freak old Uatu out. It also leads to a very cool splash/graph from Allred that brings his panel-bending shenanigans from WEDNESDAY COMICS with Gaiman roaring back into my head, always welcome. Bentley and Onome’s subsequent exchange is an instant classic. And then the rest of the issue is nothing but Lang’s payback on Doom. Which is as it should be. The Allreds all continue to bring the justice throughout. Solid closure that had me wrapped up enough that I freaked out when it looked like Val bought it, though of course I should have remembered that she makes it to the Barbecue in the Blue Area of the Moon. Which was handled in an interesting way here, five pages that we already saw last week with five new pages featuring this book’s cast interspersed throughout. It made hitting those final three pages that I had already read the least bit anti-climactic but I really didn’t mind. More than any other book on the rack, this permutation of this title really did the best job of capturing that zany anything-can-happen vibe of Silver Age Marvel. Cannot imagine a better art team for it. Good fun, throughout. And I really committed to write a much longer and more in-depth review for this final issue of the run but it turns out I’ve got all this other writing to do over here now suddenly. Okay, that was the final Fraction Bailed joke. Thank you and good night.

1/15/13

FANTASTIC FOUR FINALE #016 — Well, it wouldn’t be a fitting end to this run without the replacement guys zinging off a couple of more gratuitous “literally”s. It actually made me kind of instantly nostalgic to see them. I am a sucker for recurring motifs. Even consistent and remarkably persistent grammar-mangling ones. There has been no small amount of complaining and consternation from this corner about the quality of this run since Fraction bailed to go write INHUMANS or as it turns out slam out a gang of really excellent creator-owned material. So, here on the flagship title we’ve got Karl Kesel scripting to finish up Fraction’s plot with Raffaele Ienco on pencils and inks along with mainstay color-beast Paul Mounts holding down the fort after all this time. I’m pretty sure that Mounts was the longest-running colorist by the end of Hickman’s run and he’s still hanging out. And they do a pretty fair job of bringing it all home, particularly considering that the first two guys weren’t even onboard four issues ago. It certainly comes off much better than when Joe Ahearne and Stuart Immonen had to perform the exact same thankless task for the also-16-issue-long Millar/Hitch run a few years back. But the two FFs come together to battle Doom the Annihilating Conqueror for the fate of the multiverse and half of them die but it all still turns out just peachy keen. If it was just the main story, this would be a competent but somewhat lackluster finale. However, in his last month on this title, Brevoort wisely shuttles over the Allreds (and Quinones-in-his-insanely-Allredian-style) from the superior sister title for a ten-page backup that really really delivers, nothing but character beats during a barbecue on the moon that wraps up everything to complete satisfaction. Almost to the point that I barely feel like I need to read #016 of FF next week. I was feeling nervous from that glimpse during the main feature of Scott confronting Doom over in the other title but then there was that shot in the backup of Darla cuddling with Scott on the moon, so I guess everything turned out fine. Not that I’m not going to pick up the other finale, certainly not, it’s just that this backup did such an effective job serving as closure for several character arcs. The art is a thing of beauty and the way that the conversation with each character ends is just perfect. Shulkie swatting Ben, Johnny shrugging at the prospect of a music career, Sue basking in Ulana’s glow, Reed craning his neck to bring Val in on this latest bit of thrilling science, and Val arm-in-arm with Onome, that last one really did something to me. And the line was just totally thrown in, right? It isn’t like bread and circuses have ever been a thing before or are providing some kind of emotional payoff, but it still really worked. And a terrific last splash. I do look forward to the final finale of FF #016, even if the whole thing takes place before the backup here. A fine effort from all concerned but the team on the backup really knocked it out of the park

ALL-NEW X-MEN #021 — I know that Marvel is a ravenous greed-driven capital-devouring juggernaut that nothing can stop, but it wouldn’t break my heart if this went down to monthly to just maybe set it up so that the regular A-list art team can draw every issue. Peterson/Silva would be fine in any other situation but Immonen/von Grawbadger/Gracia put such a distinctive stamp on this title, their presence is always missed. That said, what a seriously cool move bringing in Brent Anderson to draw the opening flashback with William Stryker. Man kills, y’all! Plotwise, this was the most by-the-numbers this series has been thus far. Team in trouble, team gets out of trouble via mutant powers and engaging character interaction. Not bad but not one of the best books on the rack like it usually is. Hoping for a return to form next month. Ha! I mean next week, of course. Keep ’em coming! BEEEEENDDIIIIISSSS!

UNCANNY X-MEN #016 — Well, I hope the titles at the end don’t mean that Magneto is leaving this book in favor of a solo title because the dynamic of the triumvirate of him, Scott, and Emma is one of the most compelling aspects of this ensemble. Once again, Chris Bachalo completely knocks it out on pencils and colors and his four inkers do fine work subsuming their individual tics into a seamless blended style throughout the issue. I was really thinking that Magneto was about to take over Madripoor as a new sort of Island M but he certainly had other ideas. He got very angry at the end of this issue!

DAREDEVIL #035 — Man. These guys are so good that when the Serpent Society guys drop the secret origin of Daredevil on Page Six, even though we’ve sat through it a hundred times in a hundred different ways, it’s still beautiful. A lot of that comes down to Javier Rodriguez’s choice of palette but of course Chris Samnee is a beast as well. Waid does squeeze in a rooftop “literally” with Elektra, unfortunately. It’s not technically abuse of the term but I’m just really sick of the word. And that is a serious destruction cliffhanger to drop here as the last one of this volume. But doesn’t the prosecution always call their witnesses first? Or do they just do things funny up in that thar big city?

BATMAN: LIL’ GOTHAM #10—Since the pin-up that first invoked this series into existence, Dustin Nguyen has been cresting through a career-high executed with such a degree of taste and craft that almost nobody seems to even so much as realize or be talking about it. He has all this while been conducting a master-class in storytelling, drawing up all the sequentials in marker with every single panel rendered to an arguably perfect degree of detail, never too much or too little, in kind of a neverending jawdropping sequence whose magnitude accrues with each subsequent panel for coming up on a single calendar year, now. And with the help of Derek Fridolfs on script, Nguyen paints resonant and immediate portraits of the entire Gotham ensemble, evoking Bill Watterson’s finest work. Seriously, CALVIN & HOBBES is my all-time favorite strip, I’ve read them all, etc, plus besides that, I am more than willing to argue anyone up down and all around about how “Sparrow” is, bare-minimum, the third-greatest issue of LOCKE & KEY ever, so please believe this trained eye when I tell you that here, for these next last couple of months, we’re getting maximum-wattage-level Watterson-grade greatness and everyone should just delight in this series for as long as we are able.

JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000 #2 — Man, I want to hang with this due to the pedigree of the writers alone. But the ensemble dynamic is really not working. I would like to think that they are gearing it to a less frustrating situation but I’m not sure that I’m going to be along for that much more of a ride. This should be so much better.

PROPHET #42 — Quite the pastel-soaked departure here as Ron Wimberly gives us eighteen pages of one-man-band (story/art/colors) on a Diehard flashback. Which isn’t a bad thing. He’s got some serious pastels happening in his palette and is rocking a European sensibility to his style that looks like something derived from HEAVY METAL. Which of course feels right at home in this book. Plotwise, I’m not sure that we get enough meat to justify burning an entire issue on this story that doesn’t particularly offer new insight into the character that informs what’s happening now, or at least not that I can see. Still a lot of pretty pictures to look at. However. The five-page backup “Frog & Fly” by Polly Guo is really really good, beautifully written and drawn and terribly affecting. You know you’re always going to get quality at the back of this book, but I’ve never seen the backup just roll up and smoke the main feature to such an extent. Terrific work.

VELVET #3 — An entire season’s worth of intrigue in another issue as Velvet Templeton breaks into a prison to follow up her only lead on X-14’s missing day. But of course nothing is as it seems and everything goes terribly south on the penultimate page. Another quality serial installment from Brubaker/Epting/Breitweiser, they make kicking ass and completely knocking it out of the park every time look like just something you do.

ASTRO CITY #8 — All right, this one is really humming along now. Glad that it isn’t already over. Winged Victory is a terribly compelling character in her own right, but then Busiek doubles-down here with full-on trinity action and offers an intriguing tweak of the time-honored World’s Finest dynamic as played out here between Samaritan and the new Confessor. Brent Anderson seems to crank it up a bit on art, not that he was ever lacking, but this issue has layouts that are just a bit more dynamic with that last double-page splash really standing out as an image that can hang with the best that we’ve ever seen from this series. Which is really saying something.

BEST OF WEEK: WRAITH #3 — Now, this is certainly the real business right here! As much as I have enjoyed the previous two installments, we are now confronted with a situation in which all of the players have already been established and we have the entire issue to enjoy Charles Talent Manx III in his proper element from the get-go. And let me tell you, that gentleman gives every impression of being incapable of opening his mouth without a veritable snowstorm of bon mots springing forth as wise as they are charmingly phrased! Charles Paul Wilson III and Jay Fotos continue to provide artistic interpretations that are every bit as horrifying as the images conjured by the prose from which this character originally sprang forth. This is most particularly in evidence on the final page of the issue, which was actually a fair bit worse than I EVER pictured. And I can certainly imagine quite a lot!

MIRACLEMAN #1 — All right, I didn’t buy the new remastered reprint Marvel’s George Lucas Special Edition because I’ve already got the first eight issues of the Eclipse singles and I’m going to buy these new versions in trade eventually, so decided to save the $6 in the short-term. However, as soon as Marvel catches up with where I’m at in the original series, I will be duly picking those up so it seemed like a good idea to just start rereading the originals as they’re rereleased to get into the rhythm of the thing. It has been a few years. Does that make sense?

Diving right in: It was only this week in 2014 that I learned that the opening eight pages was actually a reprint from 1956, or whenever Mick Anglo was still cranking out the original Captain Marvel pastiche of this series. For all these years, always assumed that it was just Moore and company dropping a pitch-perfect short with “that old-timey feel” but it turns out it’s actually just an original. Funny. When this was first published, the Anglo years were only twenty-five years in the past but the entire Silver and Bronze Ages lay between that original and Moore/Leach’s new take. Now, here we are thirty-two years after this series first showed up as eight-page shorts in WARRIOR. So, we’re all really old and time will grind us all to powder with its inevitable onward rush. But nothing you didn’t already know. Of course Moore quotes Nietzsche Übermensch goodness on his first page. Classic Alan! Such a mensch all on his own. The word-count per panel is certainly far north of where it’s devolved to be these days, just take a look at that first title page for “. . . A Dream Of Flying,” but even as early as this very first issue, what we have here is Moore firing at very close to the full blast of his considerable capabilities here just barely shy of his thirtieth birthday. The quality of depth in the linework of Garry Leach’s art is frankly stunning throughout the course of these first early chapters. I can’t find a list of credits for this original colorized reprint at all that Eclipse put out, the only creator credits I can see in this entire thing are there on Moore’s second page, a little scroll that has Dez Skinn giving himself top billing as editor, followed by Moore on Story, Leach on Art and a G. George on Letters. Those are the original WARRIOR credits; it doesn’t look like Eclipse ever credits the colorist. Whoever he or she is, lately the job has been called “garish” when trotted out side-by-side with the more restrained digital version that somebody has done, but here on this three-decades-old newsprint pages, the colors look wonderful. Unlike, say, V FOR VENDETTA, which is such a product of the Eighties that you can practically hear Maggie Thatcher shrieking from just off-panel every page, this entire package, while clearly the product of a different era, comes across with every bit of the timelessness and master craftsmanship intact that make it such a storied and resonant piece of comic book history, one that we are so fortunate to finally see restored to print after all of these battles over all of these years. I’m thrilled at the opportunity to finally get to read the entire glorious story through to the end, at long last.

1/08/13

ACTION COMICS #27 — Once again, Pak really goes the distance to display how well he understands the core of the multi-faceted character who sometimes goes by the names Kal-El and Clark Kent. “Where would I be if no one had ever anthropomorphized me?” is as fantastic a retort to an Inner Bruce as we are likely to run across for quite some time. And the dynamic between Clark and Lana continues to be the best between those two characters that I’ve ever run across. The “I’m in the suit” exchange is priceless. And the final bonus double-page splash is jaw-dropping. THIS is exactly what we need from this title: connection with the man behind the archetype that we love mingled with a massive sense of wonder. Editorial also did a good job recruiting R.B. Silva and Mike Hawthorne to draw the first eight pages in a hyper-detailed style reminiscent enough of the high standard that Aaron Kuder has set for this title that it is in no way incongruous when the man himself steps in to absolutely burn it down for the rest of the issue. It makes me indescribably happy to be able to say that this is one of my favorite titles again. Because it always should be. Most weeks, this would be lock for BEST OF WEEK, but it’s a pretty gnarly gathering here, this time out.

BEST OF WEEK: DETECTIVE COMICS #27 — It almost isn't fair to compare this to everything else that came out this week, but they're all singles released on the same day, so here we go. I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist making this issue a great God-amighty thing. I was, however, expecting much more of a carefully maintained marketing phenomenon and absolutely not that each successive short story in this collection would up the ante on each one that had gone before. And by that, I mean that Meltzer’s various answers for the question “WHY I DO IT” are a pretty knockout little string of verse all on their own with the line, "I DO IT BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING ELSE," maybe my new favorite line of Bruce Wayne describing himself in the first person, or maybe even best single-sentence first-person narrative caption ever, time will tell. And Hitch completely knocks it out of the park. This is apparently a panel-for-panel recreation of the beats of the original issue from 1939, though we expand a few pages so that Hitch can jam out a few splashes, as is his wont. But this is only even in the first story of seven.

In the second story, Neal Adams locates Gregg Hurwitz to tether himself upon this particular plane of narrative reality and the results are sublime and really quite redemptive as Batman and Robin battle their foes across the course of their own evolution, with Adams altering his style to match the eras flashing by to tremendous effect. And then the third story is by far the best yet, nothing more than a surprise seventy-fifth birthday for our hero followed by a cute little homage to the first issue of Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT, but Tomasi's character work once again puts this way over the top. With regular collaborators Gleason and Gray hard at work on their monthly, we have Ian Bertram and David (not Dave?) Stewart on art. Bertram’s scratchy style is evocative of Paul Pope and other European cartoonists and is a great fit for this latter-day tale. The most crushing aspect probably of the entire issue takes place in this story with the sudden on-screen appearance of a full-grown Damian Wayne sporting gray temples, generating immediate implied thirty/forty-odd years of continuity that has not even occurred to me to thus far ever even imagine before now. I just want a regular Tomasi/Damian series. Would be all over it.

And then there are still four more stories! One-man band Francesco Francavilla gives us an iconic five-page night-in-the-life vignette before Mike W. Barr comes off the bench with Guillem March and enlists The Phantom Stranger to play “It Could Be A Wonderful Life” with Bruce in order to provide concrete illustration of just how much our hero continues to give up in order to do what he does. Then, our regular team of Layman/Fabok kick off their final arc and have no problem hanging with all the devastation that has come thus far, opening with an intriguing premise before leaving us with a cliffhanger that it will definitely be entertaining to see play out over the final two months of their run. Finally, we have Snyder/Murphy/Hollingsworth, the guys who have been absolutely burning it down over on THE WAKE, with a final tale of generations of cloned Batmen cycling through into the far future, which is apparently in-canon and at first blush seems like a Morrison-scale set-up for an entire legion of new mythos to build. Come to think of it, this is surely the first thing we’re seeing from what’s going to be BATMAN ETERNAL. It’s certainly right there in the name. These guys are masters of the craft, really knocking it out here. Strong strong work, both on this final story and throughout this entire anthology that is more than worth its cover price. Heartstopping greatness abounds.

BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE #5 — Oh, good. An anthology of excellent Batman stories by some top creators. An embarrassment of riches tonight, to be sure. Fortunately, this is another example of quality. Every story ends with some kind of cool twist, nicely curated by Chiarello, as ever. We open with Ivan Brandon & Paolo Rivera’s tale of everything going wrong on the last half-mile home to Wayne Manor with the twist at the end being obvious in hindsight, though still entertaining. Keith Giffen & Javier Pulido provide a concrete example of our hero hiding in both the shadows and in plain sight at the same time during a new entry into the time-honored canon of villains-drinking-at-the-bar stories. Blair Butler & Chris Weston drop a bit of 80s Alan Moore meta- into their effort with a superior stylistic shift late in the story from Weston. And he letters the thing, to boot! I love Len Wein’s solution to what happens when Two-Face doesn’t agree with the toss of his coin there on the second page, natch, of his story with Victor Ibáñez involving two different capers, which obviously should always be the case with this guy. Of course Wein gets it! Though it must be said, as twists go, this is probably the weakest one of the batch. If it was a contest. Paging Chubby Checker. Finally, Andrew Robinson, hot off his critical success on THE FIFTH BEATLE, shows up here in a big way to illustrate Jimmy Palmiotti’s script. Robinson has an expressive style all his own while managing to channel early SIN CITY to an eerie extent in certain panels (the foreshortened angle of Page Three, Panel Six being probably the strongest example). And Palmiotti’s script is a really touching and affecting piece of work. Strong writing and the perfect way to close out another successful issue of this series.

SEX CRIMINALS #4 — “HA HA CHIPPER.” The tone of the Page One Preembus defies description and also pretty much belief. I mean, it is incredible. Completely worth the $3.50 all by itself. I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation that the rest of the issue would turn out to be written in this cracked-out voice that’s sort of a bastard cousin of the first chapter of The Original Writer Alan Moore’s VOICE OF THE FIRE. Alas. At any rate, the art is as gorgeous as ever. Plotwise, Fraction cranks it up a bit and we finally catch the entertaining present-tense backstories up to Jon & Suzie getting pursued in The Quiet by those glowing white frozen-time sex-police sorts. Very gratifying. And the eight pages of letters and funny responses are a scream! This is one book whose blistering hype is completely justified. Come check it out!

THE SHAOLIN COWBOY #4 — ??!?! Da fug? Darrow finally not only drops in with a single bubble of dialogue on the first page but then breaks down the non-stop zombie-dismemberin’ carnage into panels. But there was one hell of a plot twist in the aftermath of all that carnage, bro! And this is just it? Is it going to take Darrow another five years to draw the next volume? Probably? Heinous!

STAR WARS #13 — Very very good. We follow up the initial year-long saga with a done-in-one narrated by Ensign Nanda, Vader’s personal assistant for five of the most terrifying days of her life. With Facundo Percio filling in on pencils. It’s perfect, I cannot envision a more entertaining actualization from this premise.

FATALE #19 — Wow. This was the best issue of this series yet. This crew is so sick and adept that it’s borderline appalling. The “FUCK PEARL JAM!” line of dialogue alone, man.

MORNING GLORIES #36 — Well, I had no idea that this doctor fellow was modeled after Baltar. But of course it’s obvious, now. I have a terrible confession to make. The DC insanity front-loaded this evening’s madness to the point that my Lone Star narcolepsy kicked in after three in the morning before I had a chance to make it all the way through the stack to this comic book. That was released on 1/08. I am a terrible person by any standard and all I can off you all are my apologies and assurances that I shall endeavor to do better in the future.

MARVEL KNIGHTS: SPIDER MAN #4 — And then this is the best one yet. These guys are telling one of the most enthralling and beautifully rendered Peter Parker stories that I have seen in quite some time. This kind of thing seems to be happening about everywhere tonight.

WOLVERINE #13 — An immaculate conclusion. Though I certainly missed Brother Hollingsworth on color, of all of his gigs, this single was an unfortunate one to have hit the chopping block. No, but Cornell/Davis/Farmer in no way fumble on the one-yard line, just continue to destroy as they have been since the get-go. This will make one hell of a single-sitting read in trade, the first thing in quite some time to hang with Claremont/Miller or BWS. That’s right, I said it!

YOUNG AVENGERS #015 — I am pretty wrecked about this being the finale with no immediate promise of return. Not that they’re not coming back. They won’t be able to help themselves, these boys. But this was a profoundly satisfying conclusion. And even though McKelvie/Wilson are only responsible for 25% of the interior content, this little darling is almost pretty much the best single issue of PHONOGRAM, right here all on its own. Cloonan murders the Noh-Varr epilogue, so much what we needed for that guy. And then but Gillen letting go of Kid/Teen Loki really summons forth just an appalling shower of tears, uncommanded throughout. And a perfect ending, perfect last shot. Somehow channeling that photography nostalgia Moore/Gibbons first started stirring up nearly thirty years ago now and filtering it through, what else, a jpg on a cell-phone. Perfection. This season was something very very special, and I really love every one of these kids. Heart in my throat.