8/8/12

BATMAN #12—Now, that’s what I call a fill-in issue. Snyder digs deep, all the way back to the first issue, and sheds new light on the behind-the-scenes machinations of Harper Row, who up until now in the series has appeared to be a random drop-in no-name cameo but gets more characterization in this issue than your average character in an entire arc of AMERICAN VAMPIRE. Snyder welcomes Becky Cloonan to the festivities, which is a perfect fit, Ms. Cloonan’s lines are already just about as synonymous in my heart with this particular character the way that J.H. Williams managed to dial his own aesthetic into the adventures of that Kathy Kane from those first few pages. Harper Row is everything we need in a modern-day female protagonist: strong, gutsy, ready to charge into danger to help Batman without a thought for herself, and in no way defined by or as a love interest. I was definitely concerned what would happen when/if this title’s stellar regular team took a break, but I should have realized that Snyder had a strategy up his sleeve from the very beginning. Strong, strong work. Even the art jump to Andy Clark wasn’t terribly jarring, timed perfectly in-line with the more superheroic elements crashing into the panel. Though I have to say, I would have enjoyed Cloonan’s work on the whole issue, we know she’s more than capable of excelling at action. The other little skip-up I had with this issue was the whole “seven words” thing, once he set up that first decoy on the first page, I kept counting words in whatever sentences seemed like contenders, which, you know, took me out of the story a bit, but a minor grumble. My favorite part might be how explicitly this issue displays arguably the best thing about Snyder's run, probably my favorite anyway, not the pitch-perfect characterization or galloping action beats, but his dogged commitment to adding to the mythology of Gotham as a character, brick by brick, every issue, just this entire Grid/ghost-grid thing alone, I mean, this is the first time this has really been discussed, right? It makes perfect sense and tucks back in to all that's gone before with surgical precision but then absolutely embodies the themes and motifs, Batman appearing to go all Robin Hood with the power but then turning out to be the true architecture holding the entire skeleton together, it's so nice when the ideas behind the words explode in your head even harder than everything they've imagined on the page. Highest possible marks for this one, all around.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #12—This team continues to turn in nothing less than a top-drawer Batman book, month-in and month-out. That Tomasi/Gleason/Gray can even step to what Snyder’s got going on down the way on a monthly basis is a massive feat. The augmentation suit shot is, of course, the fanboy moment of the week. I loved how the whole Robins subplot came together too, so priceless for Dick to just hand the trophy over. “Dude. You’re already Robin, you know.” That was a really cool shot of the four of them looking up at their robot-suit Iron Batman daddy in the sky there, but did it look kind of stretched to anyone else, horizontally distorted like you don’t have the orientation settings right on your TV? Tim’s head, in particular. Nice to see Damian still owning the book, though, of course he’s got to talk shit to the dying bad guy as the light fades from his eyes. What a kid.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #12—Yeah, maybe the best issue of the series yet, certainly my favorite since Lemire left. It would be great to see the monster throw off the shackles of agency control, just strangle that Father Time fellow in the little girl’s body and go all Nick Fury up on this shit. Kindt is really doing fine work, here. And the art never lets up, continues to blow the doors off every chance it gets. There have been no fill-ins, right? Ponticelli/Faucher/Villarrubia have grown accustomed to one another, are able to dart in and out of each other’s abilities, tightening and strengthening the pages into something greater than any single one of them would be able to produce. That splash of Frank engaging and infiltrating the threat near the end is my favorite, just good action pulp fun. Love that sky over the Leviathan graveyard. It’s a strong week for the DC #12s I picked up, all three going great guns blazing into their second years. Looking forward to seeing what they’ve got on tap for those zero-issues next month.

OZYMANDIAS #2—The title character’s not-that-secret-origin continues. We get an interesting October 11 time-stamp for the framing sequence, locking the narration down as taking place early in the original series. This one is the most middle of the road of the five series we’ve had a look at so far. It’s not offensive (or at least any more so than the entire endeavor) but not terribly compelling. The club manager slipping the payoff to the goon on the bottom of Page Seven while managing to work in both the name of the goon’s boss and the phrase “drug trade” is kind of hilarious and hopefully, surely, a throwback to that sort of hackneyed over-expository dialogue so prevalent in the Silver Age, during which this should be taking place. Right? The early- to mid-60s? Because this should be before the Crimebusters meeting in ’66. That one two-page spread of Adrian whupping ass all the way up to the rafters in silhouette is pretty gorgeous. It’s weird, though, I can’t disassociate Jae Lee’s faces with THE DARK TOWER, that following page looks taken straight out of WIZARD & GLASS to me. Digging on his layouts, those round panels breaking through page-length horizontal slits. The cover is hilarious, as there is nary a dominatrix to be found within these pages, though of course there are those pundits who will argue that willfully entering into any of these narratives at all constitutes an exercise in sadomasochism of the highest order. Maybe Eddie Blake will put on the outfit next month.

BEST OF WEEK: NEW AVENGERS #29—I really loved this issue. It reminds me of that CONFESSION special Bendis wrote that came out in the aftermath of CIVIL WAR that retroactively fixed up the majority of wreckage that Millar visited upon the Marvel Universe, just almost salvaged the entire event in 32 or so pages. Now, AvX isn’t anywhere near the mess that CW was, but Bendis is already going to work, employing his time-honored device of having characters sit around making with the back and forth to make much more sense of all the madness visited upon the Big Event-hungry superhero comic consumer. I mean, really, it shouldn’t work, all that happens in this issue is the heavies sit around and talk about what’s going on, a total respite from the battle, the opposite of that AvX: VERSUS series now that I think about it, but Bendis does such an ace job nailing the voices and tics of every one of these characters that verisimilitude is total, you really feel like you’re sitting in the room with these guys, and Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, Charles Xavier, and Reed Richards are five fellas I would be thrilled to hang with just any old time. This is the gold standard of what a tie-in to a Big Event should be. Top-drawer work from Deodato, as well.

MOUSE GUARD: THE BLACK AXE #5—It’s been many a moon, but David Peterson’s singularly unique tale of medieval mice knights in the twelfth century returns with another installment in its third volume, this one a flashback relating how Celanawe’s fate first became intertwined with the Black Axe. It’s been long enough that I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to dial right back in to the story, but this was not the case. All told, pretty heartbreaking. These mice do not have an easy time of it! And we already know how it all ends for poor Celanawe. Rough going, all around. But a beautifully told story.

THE MASSIVE #3—An excellent third issue here putting a definitive punctuation mark on the opening arc, which will make for a very strong reading experience in one sitting, though I hope the trade gets all of the backmatter. Maybe not, that might be the point of it, to drive singles sales. At any rate, Wood is a gifted enough storyteller with hundreds of scripts under his belt at this point who knows exactly how to come barreling out of the gate. I’ve enjoyed Kristian Donaldson’s art, impressive scope ranging from human interactions to the massive disaster-strewn vistas he’s called upon to provide, sometimes three to a page. Sorry to see him go. But I’m sure that Wood has another monster ready to wreak havoc upon the crew of The Kapital and those of us playing along at home.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #7—And in a nice bit of symmetry, we close out this evening’s Wood doubleheader with one of his most prolific collaborators and the artist who started off our Wednesday night, the gifted Becky Cloonan. It’s a little bittersweet because she’s only back for this one issue, but we’ll take what we can get. This is your average fish-out-of-water story except the setting is Conan’s home village. Apparently, some chucklehead is going around claiming to be Conan and raising just all kinds of hell upon the countryside. Our lovers have to stop them. That’s . . . pretty much it. This one’s a bit skinny on content as far as singles go, not quite as much thunder per issue as we’ve come to expect, but it’s so good to see the gang back together, we’ll let it slide just this once. Or any old time. Now, go make DEMO 3, please.