3/26/14

BEST OF WEEK: THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE #2 — Daniel has shown up at least a couple of times since SANDMAN #75 took its final bow twenty years ago. I recall him popping up toward the end of Morrison’s JLA run when everything was going insane enough that it was just like, Oh of course there’s the new Sandman, and then we were off to the next hyperdimensional assault with barely a beat to process what was happening. And then seems like he popped up in ENDLESS NIGHTS, I want to say? Somewhere under Gaiman’s pen, and I don’t believe there are any other contenders. At any rate, starting the first page of this issue off with the simple caption “NOW” and having Daniel apologize to Lucien and telling him that it is definitely today sent a serious charge rippling right through me. I only signed up for a prequel and tuning the narrative window in to whatever the latest incarnation is up to in this very moment is a glorious decision. Of course, we’ve got to have Mad Hettie along for the ride. I wonder if Alan Moore can be arsed to read even and only this one DC series to check in on his one-time protégé’s latest (when I saw Gaiman at Comic-Con in ’07, he told a terrific Alan Moore story involving Mad Hettie, and I have never since been able to see the character and not think of him). At any rate, we get eight pages of Daniel and Hettie walking around while she delivers her backstory after all this time, because OF COURSE, and then they unearth some pivotal macguffin that’s surely going to be all kinds of crucial to the main narrative at hand, namely the multiple incarnations of our protagonist that gave J.H. Williams III the chance last issue to prove how many different artistic styles he could cram into a single spread. Gaiman’s dialogue between the various Morpheuses is perfect, of course he would find himself an insufferably arrogant ass. The original Dream has an appropriately terrifying character design. This is the issue in which our premise is delivered. Nothing less than a star has gone mad and all of existence threatens to fold into the imminent void. Naturally, our Dream and the cat Dream pair off to go and save all of Creation, apparently by having what promises to be an emotionally detached conversation with his/their father. The Endless have parents?!? I love how Gaiman just tosses that off in the last panel, there. Kudos to DC for presenting these 24 pages ad-free and then making the ad-space in the back nothing but Buckingham interior pages of DEAD BOY DETECTIVES. That is worth your four dollar bills every single time right there, no problem. Williams continues to prove that absolutely no one could have done a better job at this than him, unflappably knocking out cross-sections of Mad Hettie’s old loony bin, the scene with the aforementioned Dreams, and cross-dimensional encounters involving lunatic stars with aplomb and apparent ease, though it has to be anything but. I hope we don’t have to wait five more months for #3, but as long as it takes, man, as long as it takes.

THE WAKE #7 — We open with a four-page prologue that looks to be the secret origin of Leeward, in all likelihood the last time she laid eyes on her father and first encounters General Marlow, a seemingly even-tempered fellow who uses the pledge of allegiance to terrorize. Sean Murphy once again proves himself a master of character acting through facial expressions (Leeward’s glee at speaking into the CB-radio on Panel Five of the first page is infectious) giving way to sweeping cinematic vistas, in this case Leeward’s father’s airship making ready to depart with his neighbors’ vehicles hovering tethered in the background and the sky inviting escape. Tellingly, the ship is oriented to fly in a right-to-left direction, the opposite of how we read Western comics, which at first glance might be a dicey storytelling decision, but Murphy is such a beast, I figured right away that it was probably because this ship probably wasn’t going anywhere. The back half of this issue is straight oceanic action, an adventurous contrast to the claustrophobic horror that dominated the first half of this series. Scott Snyder, Murphy, and Matt Hollingsworth are once again firing on all cylinders as they bring this one around the bend and gearing up to hit the homestretch.

FABLES #139 — Well, this is an innocuous enough little romp featuring Boy Blue’s Farm band, most of whom we’ve barely spent any time with, but there is of course a pretty serious and ominous undercurrent brought upon by the opening prologue, revealing that this a “small adventure that leads to the final and inevitable destruction of Fabletown.” Harsh, Willingham! I suppose that’s one way to kick off your final year. Steve Leialoha returns to full art duties for this two-part arc with illustrations that are just as resplendent as ever.

WRAITH #4 — Well, if “Scissors for the Drifter” doesn’t sound like just the most horrifying game ever, wait until you see a round of it. Goodness day! One character comes to a predictable but nonetheless gory end while our convict and cop log in some character time up at the top of the Ferris wheel, or “simp-hoister” (and didn’t that lingo make me oh so terribly miss our dearly departed CARNIVALE). The last page does not paint a rosy future for our protagonist but I am confident that Christmasland will not settle for her caretaker to meet such an ignominious end!

FATALE #21 — Ha! I like how there’s no more time for lingering mysteries. Our hero asks a question and we get the answer in a flashback on the very next page. Brubaker/Phillips/Breitweiser are certainly circling the wagons, here. Quality abounds, as ever. Can’t believe there are only four more issues of this left. I wish Brubaker (or Nevins!) had time to crank out a big old essay about TRUE DETECTIVE before all here is said and done. Yes, an annotated Jess Nevins blast through TRUE DETECTIVE’s formative influences would be just fine, thank you.

SATELLITE SAM #7 — I dig the melody we get on the treble staff. Everybody getting skunked at lunch is priceless and all, but I feel like that could have been played up for another couple of pages. Don’t just scratch the surface of the funny drunk people, Fraction! Chaykin continues to excel without any color. And a hell of a revelation here on the last page that escalates our narrative quite nicely.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #19 — We come full-circle with a requiem for the major character who got shot in the head at the end of last issue. Ryan Browne returns to deliver another stellar performance. Hickman’s captions are as insane and alien as ever, careening us through the no-time of the mind of the recently departed and spending the entire issue adding serious weight and import to last issue’s cliffhanger before advancing the narrative forward nothing more than a single page but leaving us all breathless for more. Glorious barking madness here, people!

AVENGERS #027 — And the Hickman insanity continues in parallel as our main crew continues to battle parallel versions of themselves before getting absolutely creamed by the boys from Advanced Idea Mechanics. I’m not crazy about the style that Sal Larocca’s settled into here, and it isn’t well served by Frank Martin’s coloring, a bland palette that does nothing to increase the illusion of depth on the page. I’m certainly still invested in the story but am probably ready for the next batter up on art, here.

NEW AVENGERS #016.NOW — This is a really cool move from editorial. In order to tell the story of yet another group of Illuminati operating on one of the infinite permutations of good old Earth-616, the crew at Marvel imports a talent from across the street. Rags Morales, renowned for providing interiors for the Brad Meltzer’s (in)famous tonally foundational mini-series IDENTITY CRISIS and, more recently, Morrison’s run on ACTION COMICS makes his Marvel comics debut in this issue. The reason that he’s such a perfect choice is that the team from the parallel universe that’s the focus of this issue is basically a Justice League analogue. So, they just went and got one of DC’s best guys and had him do his thing. “Archetypes of J.U.S.T.I.C.E.,” indeed! Hickman’s doing an interesting thing with T’Challa and Namor here, seeming to inject a bit of grudging respect into their relationship that’s until now been about as acrimonious as possible and just shy of a blood-feud, at least on Namor’s part. And you would never expect that from him. But it feels right. The nods to continuity and archetypes from both companies (“The Anti-Heroic Age” is a funny one) work together to not only highlight the differences in house styles between the two publishers but tell a story that’s engaging all on its own. This is still a very slow build and I understand the criticism that we’ve been too bogged down lately in our heroes basically doing research and watching a bunch of awful stuff happen to alternate versions of themselves who don’t necessarily matter, but permutations like this are helping the concept remain compelling to me.

UNCANNY AVENGERS #019 — Well, after killing every single Marvel character except Thor and Odin and blowing up the Earth last issue, Rick Remender definitely earned my $3.99 to see what he would do for an encore. And it’s the ALL-NEW UNCANNY AVENGERS OF APOCALYPSE! Not that Apocalypse is in this issue at all, but we basically have an Age-of-Apocalypse-type alternate Earth with Bearded Magneto as the tyrannical dictator and Havok & Wasp as the pretty sweet mutant power couple as our protagonists. Remender was definitely having Jan lob some none-too-subtle hints in Alex’s direction as all the shit was breaking down here these last few months, but it’s still a bit jarring to see them in full effect here in this alternate reality. The writing sells it almost immediately, though, they have terrific chemistry. Daniel Acuña returns with more world-spanning art on an even greater scale than the massive business he was turning in last time he was in the building. I’m still impressed that this book should be nothing but a punchline and it continues to be thunderous tremendous stuff.

SILVER SURFER #001 — Norrin Radd might be the quintessential example of the situation in which a comic book character is without a doubt rocking a killer character design and has been beloved by many fans for years and years as a supporting character but then just cannot hold down a series as the lead for any amount of time (Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate, and J’onn J’onnz are other examples of this that immediately spring to mind). One could make a case that Starlin/Lim’s run on the character in the early nineties is the exception that proves the rule, but it would probably help if one happened to be thirteen years old and discovering the character for the first time just then (and if one had a poster of Perez’s cover of THE INFINITY GAUNTLET #1 hung up in his bedroom, so much the better). All of which to say, the sheer number of volumes and mini-series featuring the Surfer are testament to the fact that he’s a tough nut to crack for any sustainable length of time. But courage, this latest iteration from Dan Slott and Mike & Laura Allred comes out swinging and looks like it might have what it takes to go the distance. And the solution is pretty ingenious. When it was first announced, we all knew that it was going to look amazing. The Allreds on this title are a no-brainer to knock it out of the park. The Kirby dynamism is there in full force and the colors pop in a way that seems timeless, not just the best that Photoshop CS6 can provide. This is never in greater evidence than the two-page splash of The Impericon at the center of the book. I mean, my God. But the great joy and real surprise is to be found in Slott’s approach. And of course, this is merely extrapolation from only the first issue but it looks like the antidote to the protagonist’s emotional distance (or vacuum, even), which has always made him hard for both readers and creators to dial into, is to ground him with a fully realized human companion, a character with whom the readers can empathize, someone whose wonder we can share while being confronted with all of these impossible unfathomable cosmic sights. In short, Slott straight up plugs in the DOCTOR WHO formula to this book and it’s already working like a charm. We’ve got twin sisters, one of whom has absolute wanderlust and roams the globe while the other is convinced that their home is the greatest place ever and she never wants to leave. So, of course, the thing to do is strand the latter in a distant corner of deep space as motivation for our lead character to save. I strongly suspect that before all is said and done, Miss Dawn will have gained a healthy respect and love of sights and sounds not immediately within range of the home that she has known for her entire life thus far. This book has been the source of great anticipation since its announcement and it delivers on every level, a terrific addition to the canon of Marvel books that are creator-based single-title events-unto-themselves including DAREDEVIL and HAWKEYE. Come soar the spaceways with Norrin and Dawn, but hang on!

And speaking of . . .

HAWKEYE #018 — Annie Wu returns to chronicle the latest in the L.A. adventures of Kate Bishop, which turns out to be the secret origin of Cat Food Guy. I love these stories just as much as the Aja-drawn installments with Clint. It has been such a cool thing the way that this book split into two essentially two different series while maintaining such a high level of quality. It seems like our two leads are going to converge sooner than later, but we need #019 to hurry up and come out in order to learn how well one of them can talk since he’s been shot in the head.