12/14/11

Well, I made it 49 weeks out of 2011 keeping this up, but end-of-the-year hijinx finally took their toll. I lugged a couple dozen comics 370 miles to Lubbock hoping to catch up before New Year’s, but it was all I could do to maintain the present tense in that particular asylum! I promise not to let it happen in 2012, Wednesday Night Faithful. But before we get cracking on all the new comics for the new year, let’s race through the home stretch of 2011!

BEST OF WEEK: S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 2 #4—Absolutely barking mad insane. Eleven issues in, this might be the best one yet. I don’t know, last month was pretty incredible. This book is so smart, every single creator throwing lightning bolts at the very top of their game. That double-page spread of accelerating through history is masterfully paced. Just when we clear the first page and think we’ve seen it all, we get one last gasp of what we know, yet another rendition of Byrne’s iconic cover to UNCANNY X-MEN #142, before the entire thing runs off the tracks and everybody’s jaws crash to the floor at glimpses of near future yet to come. Was that Reed with Hope in a battlefield? Teenage Valeria about to don the Doom mask might be my favorite image of the year. What a stunning way to deliver that information. Then it looks like Bendis’s future Avengers storyline gets the fifth column, the upcoming Ultron War that will surely climax his titanic run. And for the last shot, we get a teeny-tiny silhouette checking out the total annihilation of civilization. Is it Valeria Doom? Thor? There aren’t that many capes in the Marvel Universe. It better not be the fucking Hood. Anyway, then the next nine pages are a tour de force that turn out to be nothing more than set-up for all the sheer lunacy that will slam us through at least three alternate dimensions sometime in the middle of February. Let the weeks fall past, we need those new pages.

UNCANNY X-FORCE #18—Remender and Opeña finally bring their Dark Angel Saga home and it delivers on every level. Visceral strong character work, easily the best development we’ve ever seen on classic X-Man Warren Worthington III, complete with a final two-page spread that has all the wtf? factor you could possibly want from a monster saga like this, going forward. I hope Remender has this thing mapped out until #50 or that they coerce Ellis into the fold if he has to go, because they can’t get Moore or Morrison and I really don’t believe that anyone else is capable of following what’s already happened in this very very strong first year-and-a-half.

THE NEW AVENGERS #19—Awkward encounter there at the top. Jessica’s “Just going over in my head…” line would have been so much stronger without the follow-up punchline. Bendis is actually almost making The Gorgon interesting. Did The Avengers swipe a Boom Tube for their Quinjet? And, ha, another team meal. Seems like Hand is running out of slack if she’s going to help Osborn scoop the team on something of that scale.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #632—And now the Breitweisers! Good lord, I keep trying to trim my list, but Marvel is doing everything they can to keep this one in the pull. Volstagg Claus is, of course, a no-brainer. I really love Kid Loki. More than anyone since Simonson, Gillen’s done a pitch-perfect job capturing the tone of Norse myth in the narration, that age-old sensation, timeless. And the brand-new dynamic with The Death That Prowls On Four Legs, this one’s only picking up year steam heading into Year Two.

THE UNWRITTEN #32—Mm, this one was solid enough but doesn’t inspire further comment. As usual, I’m digging the tangential issues a bit better than the main narrative.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #21—I need to go back and read this whole arc. Didn’t get the revelation at the end. Jordi Bernet draws pretty pictures.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #4—This book is Monster Squad on Acid and I’m glad that Frederic Wertham is rotting in the ground. He should maybe show up as a bad guy, I guess.

DEMON KNIGHTS #4—Ooh, again a nailbiter close call, I was worried The Shining Knight impaled on the tree was going to be the only hardcore violence, but Cornell brings the average up at the end, there. I don’t care about these characters so much but am enjoying the overall storyline to hang out for a little while longer.

GREEN LANTERN #4—Johns continues to ascend, this arc remaining the best of his entire run. And getting tired of talking about Mahnke/Alamy/Champagne, they just keep knocking it out. The thing about making Carol for the last image was sweet. And Sinestro, man, so hope he’s still green after this first arc. But I think Bucky should still be Cap and Dick should have a cowl, so, you know, here’s hoping.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #4—In a really crowded field of excellent Bat-books, these guys keep swinging for the fences. Bruce Wayne’s parenting expectations are in-character, but more importantly, Universal & Perfect. “THREE THINGS—THAT’S ALL—THREE THINGS I EXPECT OF YOU: KEEP YOUR MIND AND BODY HEALTY, EXCEL AT YOUR STUDIES, AND LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.” We get Damian’s dog’s name squared away, too, wonderful. Ominous tidings, though, Tomasi does not seem to be steering our Dark Squire (or Prince, maybe?)into one of the good places.

BATWOMAN #4—You know Williams just makes all of the pros sick. I mean, they love him, but it must turn their stomachs to watch this level of thunder get dropped, month after month, no matter how long it took him to actually stockpile all of this layout precision. The amount of styles he tries on and executes with seeming effortlessness is stunning. I love how all the ads have to be at the end because they just have to get out of his way, there’s no space for them this time. You could certainly make an argument on a level of purely technical mastery and achievement that this is a better book than S.H.I.E.L.D., but that shit’s more my joint, y’all. Does Williams have the best single- and double-page composition in the industry at the moment? Probably. Is he the best ever? We’ll have to trot out McCay and Eisner and Kirby and Steranko and probably five guys I never heard of and stack them all up. But Williams isn’t done yet, we should note. He’s certainly pushing the medium, the two-dimensional page, so far that it should break into a million pieces, but it just warbles there at the point of maximum elasticity, shimmering, beautiful in all of its incandescent glory and perfection.