9/04/13

TRILLIUM #2 — All right, after a crushing first issue, this one’s got a lot to live up to, with us expecting the re-crush and all. Of course, Lemire/Villarrubia knock it out of the park as our space/time-crossed would-be lovers are immediately presented with a great deal to overcome, not the least of which is basic communication. The solution to not doing this as a flip-book is a more manageable series of alternating pages, with William getting straight rectangular panels and Nika’s pages incorporating a circular panel at some point on the center vertical axis, implying a drop of water dripping down sequential pages not unlike what Jae Lee had going on in those OZYMANDIAS pages a little while back. At first I thought that we were flashing back and replaying each scene from the others’ POV but the action appears to advance across the pages without rewinding, so I guess we’re just losing half of the dialogue throughout. Who needs it, though? The scene of the pair of them trying to express themselves by drawing with a stick is priceless and a strong and seemingly effortless little bit of characterization. And a gorgeous splash of the Trillium going to work on the pair of them. It is so rewarding to absorb the craft of artists who have not only been producing pages but working together for a long time, there’s no learning curve, it’s greatness from the first page. Our space/time-crossed couple are together then inevitably split up for the double-cliffhanger. Can’t wait for next month again, already.

CHEW #36 (29.5) — The Mighty Layman decides to twist the knife and bring us The Last Adventure of Toni. Why not? I looooove that they kept the 29.5 thing under wraps, that alternate cover was such a terrific surprise. Didn’t Layman write this one a long time ago? Seems like I read that then and thought it was so freaky, makes plenty of sense, now. Despite the dark subject matter, there are still laughs to be mined, the “It’s not always good, Sagey,” man. And wait, do we know Chow’s power? We don’t, do we? It’s hard to keep it all straight. But I think that Layman is teasing us. And I actually thought we weren’t going to get a Poyo double-splash, stab my Philistine eyes. With a FANTASTIC FOUR font, to boot. Guillory remains as spot-on as ever, both on art and random Wolverine/Mario Bros. Easter egg gags. The episode plays out in the entertaining/slightly macabre fashion to which we’ve become accustomed and leaves us right where we know the rest of the story. This continues to be one of the best and certainly most original books on the rack.

SATELLITE SAM #3 — Wow, she was indeed pretty spirited. Fraction’s got a guy from the fifties dropping a “literally” on Page 2, this has got to stop. Oh but, the recursive thing when you point a camera into its own monitor, man, I’m insane for that, have a short film about it somewhere. But this continues to be nothing less than Live Television Sex & Death thunder twenty-two or however many pages at a time. Chaykin keeps on absolutely burning it down and Fraction imbues these pretty much across-the-board unsympathetic characters with enough humanity to still keep us invested in what happens to them.

X-MEN: BATTLE OF THE ATOM #1 — Well, it looks like all of the Bendis madness has been leading to this. This is quite possibly the beginning of the end of the first act of his run. Which came fast, no doubt, but I guess publishing four issues a month will do that to you. The Art Adams cover is a terrific throwback to the halcyon days of Claremont and Asgardian Wars, just the right atmosphere they want to invoke for something like this, solid work, Editorial. We get a very gripping opening scene, Illyana has transgressed and gone into the future to make sure It Was All Worth It. Which is terribly interesting on the first page until we turn the page and get about as boilerplate a double-splash as we could. There are X-Men in the future and they are fighting Sentinels. It looks like Iceman is more of an abominable snowman and Hank has a jetpack and, oh look, there’s a female Xorn. Okay, that’s like the one interesting thing, but I feel like this was a lot of potential wasted, particularly from the guy who conceived of that insane crew of Seventies Avengers toward the end of SECRET INVASION #1. At any rate, cut to just another day of cafeteria hijinx at The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning when another new mutant’s powers go online and we get a great scene of Kitty leading the teenage X-Men into the fray. This is a really terrific dynamic that hasn’t gotten enough play during this crowded ensemble, the notion of Professor K leading the original quintet. That could kind of carry the ALL-NEW series all by itself, really. But then the stakes fire right on up into the stratosphere as Teen Cyclops straight-up catches the last blast from a decapitated Sentinel head and Cho gets the chance to homage the famous shot of something kind of like that happening to Jean way back in UNCANNY #137. That leads to a serious Oh, Shit moment when it looks like the kid is dead and then Evil Terrorist Scott, our guy we’ve been running with all these years, just disappears like Marty McFly’s been making out with his mom. Bendis definitely had me going with all of this potential catastrophe, faithful masses, but it turns out to be a fake-out, the healer kid Christopher brings him right back on the next page and all’s well. Unless you’re one of those who really hates Cyclops. And but now the X-Men are all, You’ve got to go back to #8 RIGHT NOW, kids, and who can blame them? Enter Kate Pryde and those guys Illyana saw fighting Sentinels on Pages 2 and 3. Hey, what ever happened with her in the future, anyway? She was just hanging around here like it was no thing. Did Cyclops not read her letter from the future yet? That cool little opening page doesn’t make so much sense now that the whole issue’s done.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #016 — And lateral over to the killer art squad that helped Cho out with the first chapter anyway, the deal here is Kate Pryde’s squad (that includes Deadpool and Molly Hayes, a particularly cool addition to the roster) are here to Absolutely Make Sure that the kids do in fact go back. Bendis cribs a trick from the back-end of Whedon’s run but doesn’t wait an issue to do it, has a scene play out and then flashes back to the telepathic interactions that were taking place at the same time. In a nutshell, the first chance he gets Teen Hank chooses science/time-travel over Teen Jean (lummox!) and so she settles for Scott, they steal the Blackbird, and we get a serious last-page revelation worthy of Bendis trotting out the old Xorn mask. The first week out, this crossover is killing it.

INFINITY #2 — Nice to see Syndren from Gillen’s dead-before-its-time S.W.O.R.D. series getting some play here, it’s certainly his setting. Man, but damn, that two-page six-panel montage catch-up was nothing but beauty, certainly the art but even the lyrical tone of Hickman’s expository captions. They combine to really set the stage well for what’s to come. That is some dark business with Corvus Glaive in the throne-room, what a hell of a scene. So great to see Dustin Weaver knocking it out on interior sequentials. I really dug the quick character hit about Smasher falling in love, Steve’s quip right back. Whip-smart, soldier! And an Ex Nihili’s suicide kills a world with decay. Things are escalating to a pretty serious omega-level already, not sure what or who’s going to be even left around to do anything for #s 6 or 7.

FOREVER EVIL #1 — Wait. I just jammed the entire Trinity War to get ready for this and it ends with the CSA showing up and like The Biggest Fight Evah about to erupt and then . . . this is like five minutes after that? We missed the fight? And are supposed to just accept the villains’ word that the Justice League are dead? Just because they’ve got some of their shit? That could admittedly have been boosted from several other parallel earths? Wow, that’s going to make it hard to bring them back. Since they haven’t even been shown dying on-panel. That is some off-panel Bendis-on-his-very-worst-day kind of expository bullshit right there. So, that initial deal turned me off and I never recovered, story-wise. I will say that David Finch absolutely drops the hammer here with a very large ensemble, the four-page foldout is some serious thunder. But this entire thing plays out as adolescent fan-fiction. Oooh, look, Ultraman snorts heat-vision kryptonite! SO dark. I’ll probably hang with this core title just because I like to know what’s going on and the art is terrific, but man, it’s a close call. Which is really saying something, I’m all over the concept of Luthor leading a Legion of Doom against the CSA to save the world.

BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE #1 — I am a huge fan of Mark Chiarello a colorist and editor who, second only to Morrison, has been directly responsible for some of the boldest and most compelling projects that have come out of Detective Comics Comics in the past couple of decades. He followed the first volumes of this title up with the visionary SOLO before moving on to the glorious WEDNESDAY COMICS, all of which I’ve adored, but the simple concept behind this has proven too grand not to revisit every few years. This is the fourth volume.

And but has a dedication hit you as hard recently as “For Archie Goodwin?” That one punched me in the gut. Goodwin accomplished a great deal at both major companies to push the quality of comics and wages for creators out of the Stone Age and he will always claim a special place in my heart, so cool to see him honored here. But the stories! I try not to know the creative team going in, if I can help it, just because there are glorious surprises lurking around the turn of every page.

Our first story is by Chip Kidd, who knows a thing or two about graphic design. Kidd enlists Canadian Michael Cho on art, I’ve never heard of him but his style is a perfect fit, definitely influenced by the whole Timm/Cooke aesthetic and a great way to kick things off. What a Page Four page-turn! Halfway through the first story and this one is a lock for Best of Week, no problem. But I’m sorry to say, I absolutely don’t get the ending. What is the origin of the recording Robin plays for Superman? How does that mean he’s in Korea? What was the hurry? What was BA-BUMPing? Don’t look at what? I totally don’t get the deathtrap. But can just about give it a pass anyway, too happy to be back here with all these people. It all turned out all right, is the point.

Oh, no. As if ODYSSEY was in any way ambiguous about the way in which it communicated that Neal Adams has completely pants-shittingly lost his mind, here comes this beautiful bastard. An eight-page story entitled “Batman Zombie” featuring curiously unlinked Adams pencils and dialogue that makes a whole gang of ODYSSEY seem coherent. There’s a woman being evicted from her house and the process server and flunkies are there to kick her out. And there’s some discussion of the paperwork with the bank. And Batman is a zombie in the background. And then he lurches off. That’s the first two and a half pages. “Gotta move on.” And then there’s something about overly harsh prison sentences for minor offenses. And Bruce wakes up from the dream of it all and tells Alfred, “Whatever.” I’m not even going to try and make sense of it. Just enjoy it. It’s glorious.

And but then the best of the batch is Maris Wicks and Joe Quinones’s “Justice Is Served.” Basically a Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy team-up, with Batman & Alfred relegated to supporting roles, this one hits every beat and is the least visibly forced of the entire crew. Because, you know, this time, there’s no Simonson or Gaiman, each and every one, you can see the creators swinging for the fences, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, that’s what I want and would be doing myself were I ever so lucky, but there’s a simple effortless-appearing component in this story that doesn’t happen for the rest of the book.

And then the greatness of Sean Murphy. Those bios, man, I don’t know, I had assumed that Chiarello wrote them, but now I think it’s got to be the creators, because what John Arduci wrote about himself was disgusting. I hope I’m wrong, I would really love if someone didn’t manage “profound” as an adjective and “the human condition” in a faux-third-person discussion of their own work, but that’s certainly an easier answer than that Chiarello did it. Occam’s Razor, and all. Baby steps, Ellie. So but the main point of the fourth story is that Sean Murphy loves to drive high-toned badass car-chase situations. And that at least Arduci managed to get out of the way enough on the script to let Murphy destroy it, nothing as catastrophic as the WC pages with Bermejo, anyway.

And last but not least, we have eight pages from Mackie & Samnee, the tonally closest thing to a boilerplate Goodwin done-in-one all night long. I mainly remember Mackie for having a sick mullet and running the New Universe and creating that very successful Danny Ketch Ghost Rider with Javier Saltares. Here, the man hits every beat and point and, to the surprise of no member of the human species, Chris Samnee shows up and murders these pages like he’s been waiting his entire life to, this was his one clean shot.

Forty pages. Five dollars. Five stories Black and white Batman. Chiarello is great and good and we are lucky to have him.