Monday, July 23, 2012

7/11/12


BATMAN #11—After starting off with the bar set to a ridiculous height and then ten months of relentless and consistently rewarding escalation, Snyder/Capullo/Glapion/FCO bring it all crashing to a finale just in time for Con. This one’s satisfying on every level except I wish that the ending was a little more definitive, it reads very much as what it is, the end of an excellent excellent arc in a monthly BATMAN series, but I could have used a bit more punctuation. There are no narrative cheats, but just not quite enough finality. The action comes to its logical conclusion and then we get a few pages of Bruce recovering and telling Dick how he’s going to get them all just in the next little bit, here. I don’t know, that’s probably coming across harsher than I want it to and I did enjoy the hell out of this entire run, no problem for me the best DC monthly since last September. What I’m trying to say, I wanted to feel more like I hit the last page of Miller’s YEAR ONE or DARK KNIGHT, and a little less See You Next Month! Though, I should say that having Bruce tying it up for us all the way back to the first narrative caption and finally providing the perfect Gotham Is . . . was a master stroke and just damn perfect. More greatness in the American Pennyworth backup with Albuquerque, though its placement after The End kind of messed me up. Would it have been too weird to lead with the backup? Or have it in-between the foightin’ and subsequent manor convalescence? A superior effort from all parties, who I suspect might be the only creative team out of 52 to deliver every single issue without a fill-in, and even manage to jump ahead a week with #9. An unimpeachable work ethic!

BATMAN & ROBIN #11—I don’t know what it is, but this is the first time since DEATH IN THE FAMILY that I’ve read anything with Jason Todd where I felt like it was actually him instead of just a garbage Winick reincarnation. In just a very few pages, too. Tomasi’s deft hand. Though the art department of Gleason/Gray/four other guys is certainly no slouch, I really loved that double-page no-dialogue spread of them getting out of the Batmobile into all the BOOM-SKOOM. After the first arc, this has for all intents and purposes turned into a Damian-centric, which I’m fine with. These guys delivered a hell of a rip-roaring first arc in a very crowded field of talent in the Batman books, and this three-parter is an entertaining chance to relatively catch our breath before plunging on into the next great thing.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #11—Kindt gets his name on the cover this month and continues to tear it up inside, has done more to characterize and drill us into Frank’s head than Lemire managed in the first nine months. Ponticelli/Faucher continue to refine their style, it’s really matching up perfectly with this story. I love that with this book, THE UNWRITTEN, and those shenanigans Morrison is getting up to in BATMAN, INCORPORATED, there are now three antagonists called Leviathan running around the DC/Vertigo Universe. No reason they can’t all be the same person right?

SWAMP THING #11—This was kind of the same deal for me with BATMAN, it didn’t provide the definitive conclusion toward which I felt the previous issues had been building and deserved. I mean, after all this, the bad guy just gets away? My man Marco Rudy blew it up, though, has been turning in beautiful work all along opposite Paquette but apparently still had room left to up his game. Beautiful work from Val Staples, as well. And hey, not so concerned about lack of punctuation with that last page, at long long last!

MINUTEMEN #2—There’s a bit more meat to the plot here as we get Hollis reaming out that old media-manipulatin’ Schexnayder about integrity and such a couple of decades too late before flashing back to seeing how the group interacted with one another right out of the gate, I’m talking about a week Before The Team Portrait, y’all. Then, the whole thing ends on a frankly bizarre montage alternating between Hooded Justice introducing Captain Metropolis to the joys of bondage and sodomy, a flashback of a little boy straying into danger, and then Nite Owl, the Silhouette, and Mothman finding the place where he met his final fate and/or the hanging body of the perpetrator, all lyrically set to Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Unseen Playmate,” the combined effect of which is exactly as creepy and offputting as it sounds. A big wtf? to Cooke on this one.

THE NEW AVENGERS #28—Ooh, that’s some cold shit, Bendis. A reasonably entertaining issue that means almost nothing within the larger context of the event. It is, I also want to say, wonderful to learn from an ad that there was in fact a team of X-Men before Scott & Jean, et al, and that Wolverine and Sabretooth were on it, because of course, and that their adventures will be chronicled just very soon now by Neal Adams and Christos Gage. I’m sure there will be nothing batshit about that one, no.

KIRBY: GENESIS #8—I enjoyed the hell out of this. An undertaking worthy of the great and fertile imagination that produced all of these characters and so many more. That double-splash of “WE WILL SHOW THEM” really says it all. Sorry that it has to be over, but all great stories should come to an end. Much respect to Busiek/Ross/Herbert and everyone else instrumental in making this colossal and ambitious undertaking a reality.

CONAN #6—Well, the second arc’s already over and it appears that we’re again saying goodbye to a seemingly irreplaceable artist. James Harren really came in and blew the doors out, massive respect to him on this one, with Dave Stewart lending his deft palette to the proceedings. I’ve seen a few people really knocking the shit out of this comic, like massive disparagement, and I absolutely don’t get it, I haven’t been the most loyal fan of the character over the years but have dropped in and out on greats like Truman and Busiek and of course classic Thomas/Smith taking their turns, and this right here is the business.

THE MASSIVE #2—Wood elevates the levels of paranoia and dread exponentially and also manages to move things along pretty well for only the second issue. Kristian Donaldson continues to impress, showcasing a command of layout, character acting via facial expression, and just breathtaking vistas of scenery that really bring the global scale of this book to life. And of course, there’s more Dave Stewart. Yet another very impressive creator-owned debut this year.

BEST OF WEEK: (CHEW) SECRET AGENT: POYO #1—This issue is magnificent, a celebration of both the title character and the willingness to take something so far past the point of superlative hyperbole that it assumes a fearsome momentum and life all its own, completely putting to rest the archetypal infamous fanboy concern codified by the question, “Who would win, Hulk or Thor?” The answer is Poyo. Avengers vs. X-Men? Poyo. JLA, Avengers, and the rest of the combined Marvel and DC universes? Poyo. God and his host of seraphim and cherubim, outfitted for war waged upon the highest plane of existence? It’s looking like Poyo. In this issue alone, Poyo crushes all the demons of Hell led by dread Beelzebub himself, fights his way back to life after multiple gunshot wounds from hollow-point mercury-tipped 45-caliber bullets, then via flashback/montage battles [a saber-toothed walrus and other irradiated zoo animals, a gang of Viltrumites from INVINICIBLE in space, and something called Genghis Condor and his mutant Mongol Tryano-riders], teams up with all the main Image characters in the first new panel of IMAGE UNITED we’ll probably get in 2012, falls in love, sees that love blasted to bits by lightning while they both plummet from five miles up, and then flies through the head of an evil scientist causing herds of farm animals to rain from the sky. In 22 pages. I would so very much love to get this as any kind of a regular series, but Layman & Guillory would likely be dead within the first year, their frames withered husks, drained of all essence by the relentless unstoppable force of nature known only by the name Poyo. Glorious.

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