6/27/12

BEST OF WEEK (not that anyone else really had a chance): THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN – CENTURY: 2009—Moore & O’Neil return with the third installment of this century-spanning volume that races our intrepid and disenfranchised band of malcontents all the way up from the beginning of the century to the present (or, yeah, two years in our past now, but when we’re used to hanging out in Victorian London, why split hairs?). The conclusion of the previous volume did not lead me to believe that this was going to open on an uplifting note, and Moore does not disappoint. Orlando is a maniac soldier fighting the fictional equivalent of the Iraqi War (still need to hit Jess Nevins’ annotations, not sure what story this in-narrative Q’mar derives from) who has just massacred not only his entire regiment but made collateral damage of everyone within range, Mina’s spent the forty years since last issue institutionalized, and Allan is homeless and back on the junk. Even worse, Vincent Chase is starring in AQUAMAN 2: REVENGE OF QUISP and Driveshaft has a new album out called OH, WHO CARES?, presumably without the songwriting contributions of their founding bassist. Dire times! But it never occurred to me, how once this fiction juggernaut caught up with the times, how all the throwaway Easter eggs would be far more devastating for me personally than what was going on in the 19th century, or even 1969, just because I’m so much more conversant with modern popular culture vs obscure Victorian literature. Establishing the tangential continuities of ENTOURAGE and L O S T in a two-panel shot is a pretty heavy blow, but Moore makes it even crazier a few pages later with Orlando watching the news and giving us a three-panel hit of Andy Millman having a laugh on CELEBRITY-RAPE-AN-APE, then an update on how Nemo’s great-grandson is now an aquatic nuclear terrorist, followed up by incoming President David Palmer blaming Josiah Barlet for the miserable state of the economy. This last is so hilarious because, remember, Martin Sheen’s infinitely charismatic character on THE WEST WING was a Nobel-prizewinning economist. And just when it can’t get any deeper, Moore drives the 24 nail in that much deeper and ridiculously by declaring that CTU has operatives who can end the recession in exactly 24 hours. Now that is a season of Kiefer Sutherland that I want to see. “We’re running out of time!”

But, as ever, all of that is detritus, window-dressing for the story that Moore and O’Neil really want to tell, about the existential terror of immortality and fear and jealousy and love and friendship and redemption of characters created long ago by other people who really have no business ever interacting unless you want to sign up for the notion that all fiction is shared ideaspace. After getting his/her marching orders from Prospero of The Blazing World (last seen in THE BLACK DOSSIER) in eye-blasting 3-D no less, Orlando rallies and manages to put the remainder of the old gang back together just in time for a gruesome field trip out to Hogwart’s. You really have to, if not admire then at least stand in awe of, Moore’s audacity, trotting out probably the most popular modern-day character in all of fiction as nothing less than the Antichrist and villain that it’s been the point of this entire volume to vanquish. I don’t want to get any more specific and spoil more fun than I already have, but the last few pages of this one are definitely one-of-a-kind and Completely Nutter Fucking Batshit. I mean, one thing after another. I certainly understand any reader feeling like this is a little much? but I gobbled it up with a spoon, just glorious madness throughout.

And the prose backmatter. If Moore didn’t single-handedly invent the form with WATCHMEN, he certainly made a strong and immediate assertion for all time that no one does it better, and here he maintains the delirious streak he began in the first volume by providing delicious prose every bit as literary as it is pulp trash, equal parts Michael Chabon and John Thomas. Really, reading just six pages at a time, trying to keep pace with all those ornate descriptions and rhapsodic turns of phrase will make a stone-cold sober body feel like you took just enough of the good stuff, enough to get right. I eagerly await at long last getting lost in the thousands and thousands of pages of JERUSALEM. And Galley-wag Jackboy Sixty is the Sensational Character Find of the 21st century. Just that patois alone.

The really incredible thing to wonder is what’s next? Is this series going to dive headlong into science fiction for the rest of its run? The great thing about it not coming out regularly is that they can really wait for inspiration, the right convergence of influences and references to coalesce into original narrative. There’s no hurry to get it right. I can’t imagine what Volume 4 of this insane idea will hold, but will certainly be there whenever it lands on these shores, fresh and glistening, newborn from ideaspace.

BATMAN INCORPORATED #2—A great Talia-centric here with her turning the tables on her father after he takes her prisoner serving as a framing device for a lifelong recap flashback, all the way through her first falling in love with The Detective and yet another reprise of the famous hairy-chested swordfight. Seriously, I know it was the O’Neil/Adams iconic business, but I swear if someone so much as utters Ra’s al-Ghul’s name, it’s like Bruce has to pause for a second and give us a flashback panel with the caption, “We dueled in the desert once. Wearing no shirts.” This one’s a bit light on content, but entertaining enough when taken as part of the whole. Cool symmetry with Talia raising Damian the only way she knows how, with the help of four ninjas. You’ve also got to love the shout-out to YEAR ONE when she’s in the snow kicking that tree into splinters.

FF #21—More great fun as we get the kids’ side of the grand Wakandan adventure. Valeria is such a great character, it’s hard for her not to overshadow everyone. I’m all right with that. Dug her little aside about promoting collective interest and pan-national solidarity for nation-building, and the last beat is pitch-perfect. Can’t believe there are only going to be two more of these, so bummed.

PROPHET #26—Brandon Graham is very very good at what he does. I have nothing but blazing hyperbole to say about this book. It is one of my very favorites on the rack. Quite the revolving door of talented fellows on art. Fans of science fiction, pulp, and Moebius need this in their lives so much.

NITE-OWL #1—This was the worst-case scenario I envisioned on 2/1/12, otherwise known as B4WATCHMEN DAY: DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS, Y’ALL! THE SEQUEL. Andy & Joe Kubert deliver rock-solid perfectly paced storytelling because they’ve got in deep down in there twisting in their double-helixes, it’s the only thing they know how to do, they actually have many students paying them to teach them exactly how to convey narrative via sequential art, but J. Michael Straczinski opens with throngs of adoring fans hooting at Hollis Mason after he foils an afternoon heist before deciding that it would be funny to trot Rorschach’s already-a-parody-of-itself “hurm” as pretty much a catchphrase. Dear Walter squeezes out maybe ten in half as many pages, including the last line of dialogue for the entire issue. Like it’s funny. Rorschach as a sitcom star. Plus, absolute absolute worst-case, for no reason, we trod on ground already viewed from multiple angles by Moore/Gibbons and return ONCE AGAIN to the scene of Captain Metropolis’s doomed Crimebuster’s meeting in . . (all together now!) . . 1966. Pages of being back here, suddenly now forced to compare Kubert to Gibbons shot-to-shot, line-to-line, because how can you not? and We Learn Nothing New, JMS brings us back here to deftly by way of sledgehammer insert the narrative innovation that Dreiberg felt a brief fluttering in his heart when he first laid eyes upon Laurie. As if they might, one day, have some sort of future together. Mean something to one another. Repugnant. Kurtz-grade horrah. I’m not the sort of fella to enjoy the sight of another getting skullfucked to death by rabid baboons, but after this, if that person was old JMS, I don’t think I’d change the channel just right away.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #10—I don’t care about the bad guy at all, but Jim Lee and all those inkers and colorists are certainly drawing the hell out of this. That “TAKE HIM” splash works really well, exactly what you need to be doing when you’ve got Lee on the League. The Shazam story is working for me all right on its own merit, but certainly not as an update of these particular mythos. Really wish it was more of an all-ages take, as great as Frank is.

FLASH #10—I love the art, I really do, but all the relationship angst is starting to get to me. What was the point of rebooting him and Iris and bringing back Patty from limbo if we’re almost a year in and he’s farther away from opening up to her then ever? I guess it’s the mark of a good story that I’m engaged enough to be infuriated, but hey, this is me over here being infuriated. Long live the Eisner title pages!

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #28—This looks like it’s going to be another great arc. Though I wish, just once, there would be a twist/identity surprise that wasn’t Skinner Sweet. At least it wasn’t at the end of the issue, but any time anyone in this series gasps at the sight of someone and there’s a page turn, bet the land that your grandmother raised you on that it’s going to be Skinner Sweet there, in some form or another. Albuquerque continues to absolutely knock it down, can’t believe more people aren’t freaking out over this guy after two+ years of this thing.

FATALE #6—We open with another prologue starring the grandson that’s considerably less wtf? now that we are trained to expect Lovecraftian horror to drop in on us out of nowhere. Once the flashback narrative resumes, Hank and Dom are history and we meet two new protagonists in 70s Hollywood who stumble into Josephine’s orbit. This one’s a little skinny, not a lot to judge the new volume on, but of course these creators are all monsters at what they do and I’m sure it will be great when all’s said and done. The Jess Nevins essay is of course interesting, but a little bit more of a laundry list than I’d prefer.

SPACEMAN #7—It is not a bad thing to see the realtee crew get machine-gunned down in silhouette. This one wasn’t quite as satisfying in singles as the others have been, I’m thinking I definitely need to jam all eight before the final installment. The entire creative team can, of course, do no wrong.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #4—More gorgeous art, though the twist felt a bit too similar to how it went down with Oppenheimer. Of course I’m rooting for Feynman, but it seems like even he might be outclassed by the staggering amount of bastards running around killing the world with science, one discovery at a time.