11/13/13

BATMAN #25 — The black cover was kind of tricky, made me think we were rocking a SUPERMAN #75-type situation, here. Capullo/Miki/Plascencia continue to absolutely burn it down on art, very much following the time-honored DC tradition of making whatever city the story’s set in a vibrant character in its own right. Hell, with these colors, even the sky’s pretty much a damn character. The price-point on this issue is a bit dicey, $4.99 for, yeah, 24 pages by the main team and then another five pages by Andy Clarke & Blond (the Adjective Who Walks Like A Colorist), but that one’s pretty much just a quick vignette dedicated to how awesome Snyder’s pet character Harper Row was even as a young girl. The main story moves things along but the extra dollar rubs me the wrong way. I did enjoy Bruce punking Gordon with the bats, though, both on a surface comedic level and because it is straight up the dumbest thing he could have possibly done to distance himself from his alter ego. “Oh, Gordon wants to look down the hole leading to the Bat-Cave? Let’s throw him off the scent by bombarding him in the face with an entire army of bats! That should resolve that particular secret identity crisis, yes sir!”

BATMAN: LIL’ GOTHAM #8 — These guys have done it again, produced another short that I somehow love more than all that have come before. I’m a huge fan of the way this book manages to maintain a playful whimsical tone while still remaining true to the core of the mythos. The idea of Bruce & Selina taking off on vacation is inspired but the execution is immaculate, too many perfect little character beats and one-liners to list here. My favorite thing, though, might be on the first page when Alfred asks how many moths did this to Bruce’s costume and it turns out that was just shenanigans in Apokolips with Darkseid’s Omega Effect. “Gotcha,” indeed.

ALL-NEW X-MEN #018 — Wow damn, so Bendis and company just turn in the best issue of this series yet in the aftermath of “Battle of the Atom.” I guess we don’t need to worry about the big event burning out this book’s fire. Bendis continues to juxtapose strong character beats between people who are family with funny little bits of the teen X-Men being ignorant of everything that’s happened since #8 of the original series, the first example here being Kitty dapping Scott on the shoulder with “That’s why you’re Scott Summers,” while Teen Beast asks, “What is Weapon X?” The two pages between Jean and the Cuckoos set up what looks like to be one hell of a dynamic, particularly if Phoebe dyes her hair red. But Magneto/Bendis! If subtext were spoken, it would no longer be subtext, so your “unspoken subtext” is quite simply redundant, as Henry might should have pointed out to you. Benjamin Leeds’s escalating reaction shots were really hilarious. And but how cool to get Katya & Illyana back together? Just like old times, yes. And how terrific, the deal with Scott & Hank’s thoughts combining to piss Jean off into levitating for the first time only to have Warren save her. This is a perfect update of exactly the dynamic that “The Man” had going to much less subtle effect there in the first issues of X-MEN back before the kids were ever UNCANNY or got kidnapped into our present. No review of this issue, this series, is complete without mentioning how beautiful the pages that Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger, and Marte Gracia are producing, one of the best looking books on the rack every single time. 

WOLVERINE #011 — I dig how Cornell’s going all IRON FIST on the members of Sabretooth’s Thirteen Ninjas Hand offshoot clan. It’s interesting, too, in Kitty’s dialogue immediately after the fight, tonally, she sounds just like a Whedon character. Specifically, the “I get that.” How much of that is a result of Whedon’s time with her in ASTONISHING rubbing off on other writers and how much of it was innate to the original Claremont version that creeped into Whedon’s pen over the years as a result of his affection for the character? And what a fun fact about the Hand/ninjas/stagehands. Logan with the obscure costume trivia! Once again, Davis/Farmer/Hollingsworth produce superior artwork that is a master class in all substance and very little flash, nothing but the craft of sequential storytelling at its finest.

STAR WARS #11 — So, twelve issues then? I didn’t know that but was figuring it out in the back half, there. Terrific reveal with the mole, I never saw that coming. D’Anda/Eltaeb continue to absolutely burn it down on art while Wood brings the various threads to what looks like will be satisfying conclusions. I’ve particularly enjoyed his take on Wedge Antilles, a very natural outgrowth of where it seems like the guy’s head would be at in the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin. That last page is a hell of a thing.

ROCKET GIRL #2 — This is another beautifully drawn issue that extends the potential promised by the first. I do feel like a little bit more could have happened plot-wise this time out. That’s an interesting wrinkle with the Q-Engine paradox/conundrum but other than that, everyone basically tells Rocket Girl that she can’t do whatever she wants and then she flies around and tries to stop a convenience store holdup. I also don’t understand the right half of that final split-page. How did we get from her stepping into the time machine while telling O’ Patrick that he’d just slow her down to that last shot of Gomez standing over her with her rocket-pack all jacked up? That’s not an intelligent place to go non-linear, I don’t think, pretty confusing to most readers. This review sounds more like complaining than I felt, still enjoying immersing myself in this world and am interested to see where it’s going, just hope they Brandon Montclare tightens up some of the narrative beats to hang with Amy Reeder’s incredible art.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #16 — Aw, Einstein and Feynman look so sweet, dozing there propped up against one another. It was good to get all hands back on deck this month, both the ensemble on-panel and Brother Pitarra on the drawing board. These pages seem more intricate, like he either spent more hours and hours on them or is getting quicker at lavishing hyperdetailed linework on every panel. Maybe Geof Darrow coming back was some kind of massive inspiration. I’m a little bit unclear on the particulars behind Einstein and Feynman’s gambit, how they pulled that creature from redspace into Project Vulcan. Project Ares has something to do with it? Hickman makes my head hurt in all the good ways. Einstein with the chainsaw is truly one for the ages.

ASTRO CITY #6 — Mount Kirby. Man, I never get tired of reading that. Busiek/Anderson/Sinclair return with yet another quality issue of this title. It’s never what I expect but always an entertaining look at a super-powered world from a non-powered individual who the creators manage to make compelling solely through the complexity of his or her humanity. I was completely invested in Thatcher Jerome and very much wondering what choice he would make by issue’s end. We also get a couple of quality scenes with the Ambassador from #1. Is he as oblivious as he appears to be on the surface of his interaction with Jerome? Or cannily assessing the situation? I remain thankful to be collecting comics during a time when ASTRO CITY is released as a monthly title.

THE ROCKETEER/THE SPIRIT: PULP FRICTION #3 — My kid doesn’t understand the concept of covers with figurative images that aren’t meant to be taken literally. No matter how much explaining I did, I was unable to answer the fundamental question that this cover poses: How did The Spirit and The Rocketeer get so small and in those girls’ hands? Was it a shrink ray? At any rate, now J. Bone is on interiors, the third guy in as many issues, and while he’s certainly talented and well versed in the school of Cooke from the year those two spent together on a previous volume of THE SPIRIT, it’s a pretty serious drag losing Paul Smith’s ability to simultaneously evoke the styles of both Eisner and Stevens. Waid’s story is, of course, still rock-solid (I can’t believe I didn’t see the twist of making Betty an Eisner femme fatale coming, so perfect and obvious), but losing that dimension of Smith rocking an amalgamate riff on those two artistic styles definitely kicks this series down a notch from the first issue, I am sorry to report.

THE SHAOLIN COWBOY #2 — So, Geof Darrow is fucking mental. That is the simplest way to put it. There are thirty-three exhibits of evidence presented in this volume uninterrupted by advertisements but I am confident that you will come to the same conclusion that I have. I’m not even going to talk about these pages in any way because to know what they contain ahead of time would spoil the fun, particularly halfway through when you’re thinking to yourself that there’s no way he can possibly sustain this for the duration of the issue. Brilliant. But fucking mental.

BEST OF WEEK: WRAITH #1 — To offer fans of LOCKE & KEY the slightest comfort as we stand upon the threshold of bidding a final farewell to the Lockes and Keyhouse, Joe Hill and the fine folks at IDW have been good enough to serve up this mini-series that is a prequel to Hill’s latest novel NOS4A2 featuring the silver-tongued antagonist, one Charles Talent Manx III. And let me tell you! It is not a tale that you want to sit around the fireplace reading to your loved ones in these cold winter nights leading up to Christmas Eve! As purveyors of Mister Hill’s other fare might already suspect, this is a story that includes no small amount of gore and violence and even occasional misconduct of a sexual nature. But so compelling is the voice of our newly crowned protagonist that we are powerless not to follow his exploits all the way through to the last page with barely a pause to catch our collective breath. Hill really packs a great deal of narrative into this first issue alone. I expected the entirety of this series to serve as an extended origin sequence that would focus on Manx’s humanity and eventual transformation from a henpecked family man into the vampiric Wraith-driving serial killer we all know and love from the novel but that entire narrative journey is accomplished in a few pages in this very issue. It certainly leaves a great deal of pages in which to relate other horrific facets of the early life of Mister Manx, the details of which I can scarcely guess! The kernels of information revealed herein are not surprising to one familiar with the character and tropes of the genre but ring entirely true to those of us previously unfamiliar with the specifics of young Charlie’s boyhood. Hill is more than ably assisted in this endeavor by Mister Charles “Talent” Wilson III, an artist whose style has previously resembled more chiba-influenced art in the vein of Skottie Young drawing adorable baby versions of popular superheroes only with Wilson skewing his work into a darker vein somewhat reminiscent of early Tim Burton sensibilities, most famously on display in critically beloved series THE STUFF OF LEGEND. Here, in no small part abetted by the tones of stellar LOCKE & KEY contributor Jay Fotos, Wilson’s work veers closer to photorealistic with facial expressions and body language bearing a greater load in carrying the narrative with only occasional blasts of outright magical horror appearing as first young Charles and then the Wraith get closer to Christmasland. The cover with the Advent calendar is, in particular, an inventive delight, featuring images from the story contained herein as well as a few that we will presumably see in future installments, in addition to headshots from a couple of old friends who will almost surely not be making personal appearances, namely the Abominable Snow-Monster from 1964 stop-motion animation children’s special “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and the title character from the 1922 F.W. Murnau black-and-white film NOSFERATU. As previously mentioned, I do not have any guesses about where this series is heading. I fully expected Mister Manx to arrive with his daughters at Christmasland on the final page of the series, but I do not mind telling you that I am as excited to find out what comes next as would be the case were it already the night before Christmas and all of the stockings even now hung by the chimney with care!