2/4/15

MIRACLEMAN #15 — And so at last we come to the end of Moore/Totelben’s storied run on this title. I expected Marvel’s reprint of this one to kick up a bit more of a fuss, presuming that this is lots of folks’ first time to read it like me, but maybe everyone who cares has already tracked it down over the years. This is the climax, bloody death and devastation on a scale and at such detail that it must have certainly been of a revelation in 1988, pun intended. Kid Miracleman returns and just absolutely wrecks anything and everyone in London in gratuitous and absolutely horrible ways. Totelben’s nightmarish depictions of graphic violence are unparalleled. The resolution to the ultimate conundrum of how to stop Kid Miracleman for good is completely expected but no less tragic, in large part due to Totelben’s staging. The last three panels of Page Eighteen are haunting, that smile on Johnny’s face. And then our hero crying his eyes out on the last page really just cuts it out of you. I’m not sure if Moore had already fallen out with DC by this point, but I suspect that he had, and this was him, deftly and quite dramatically slamming the door on all of the Silver Age wonder that had first fired his imagination as a boy. It is a haunting deconstruction of superheroes in the real world every bit as profound as WATCHMEN though lacking the latter’s sublime and elegant balance of form and content in the panelwork. This is a terribly sad place to leave off a run and laid me pretty low the first time through. I am very glad that we have Gaiman of all people in the queue for next month to steer us back in the direction of hope. Which, at this point, would really be any direction at all. We have bottomed out at the absolute South Pole of crippling sadness, is what I’m trying to say, and there is no direction to go but up.

ANNIHILATOR #5 — Morrison/Irving find a way to somehow ratchet up the manic madness of this thing a couple of notches higher. The in-script sections are certainly becoming more insane. This is veering into some heady hard science-fiction zones that Morrison hasn’t really explored since finally pulling that pin on THE INVISIBLES. Everybody’s in place, we’re back at the haunted house on the sinkhole, Max Nomax is on the verge of curing death, Ray Spass is having an aneurysm or some shit while on the cusp of finally finishing his grand and glorious screenplay. And Frazer Irving’s art has everyone looking absolutely terrifying, even the nice people. I’m just kidding, there are no nice people in Hollywood. Next month can’t come too soon.

NAMELESS #1 — Strong work from all parties. Burnham and Fairbairn actually do most of the heavy lifting here as Morrison doesn’t give us that much to dial into in terms of character hook here this first issue, but we’re happy to go along for the ride with such beautiful artwork. The last couple of pages just barely explain this cover image that we’ve been seeing for months; it looks like Brother Morrison is conjuring up the serious sigil-magic once again. If he ever really stopped. We’ve got our mysterious lead, we’ve got our extinction-level event to prevent, we’ve got out “Strawberry Fields Forever” quote to mull over for another month. Next issue should be roaring great guns from the get-go.

SAGA #25 — All right, dude calling out the number “twenty-five” here is some pretty weak-ass meta-sauce for the first-page gag. I have not gotten more acclimated nor appreciative of the modern-day slang, such as when our narrator says that everyone was “poor as shit” or “had skin in the game” or especially a fucking “spoiler alert.” Jesus wept. I don’t want it to, but that business just rips me up out of the story every single time. “They weren’t degenerates, they were actors,” is a terrific line, though. The old BKV can still get some in there! I just pine for the days of cross-country hijinx with that Yorick & Ampersand & 355.

VELVET #9 — This one’s solid enough but felt a bit like filler. At least David Carradine drops by to drink some liquor and throw in a John Thomas reference free of charge. The cliffhanger leaves a bit to be desired in terms of stakes. This one is not really keeping the momentum of the first arc in singles.

WYTCHES #4 — The noose tightens as Charlie struggles to help his daughter in multiple time-frames, and we get a little bit more explanation about the mechanics of the whole “pledged is pledged” deal. Probably enough explanation, for my money. A little bit goes a long way in matters such as these. Pretty solid escalation in the cliffhanger, as well. Jock & Hollingsworth continue to blow it up on the interiors, and Snyder takes us on a trip down memory lane to his first encounter with horror at a summer camp when he was nine, which of course involved EYES OF THE DRAGON as the gateway. Man, that was everybody’s first Stephen King book, seems like.

EAST OF WEST #17 — Oh, Mister President Samuel Clemens, it is your italicized and emboldened pontificating that I like the most. We jump around the ensemble here a little bit more than we have lately. A quick manga-fueled romp in Jordan before checking in with the genius and extremely socially awkward son of Death, winding up with the entity himself and his one true love, Xiaolin, climaxing with a beautiful 16-panel Dragotta/Martin page that juxtaposes love/lust and violence. And then Hickman slams the gate shut on all of that shut with an out-of-nowhere final caption that is more than a little heartbreaking. These characters still aren’t quite breathing with beating hearts for me quite yet, but I do care about them at least.  

AVENGERS #041—Now, I know some folks who were actually pissed off that they just recycled Hitch’s THE ULTIMATES #1 cover here, but I found it pretty funny. I dialed out of the Ultimate Universe after the tragic first issue of Loeb’s ULTIMATUM abortion, so I have no idea what the deal with this Reed is, but I assume the other three are dead and he’s just a super-villain-in-secret now, which works well enough for me, particularly if he’s been killing other worlds all clandestine-like. 67 is a lot. Oh, and what a turnaround on the fate of Namor. I have to say, I bought it last month. It’s a bit of a cheat, walking back something that we saw on-panel last issue. All of those images were just like in T’Challa’s head? I wish they just would have not shown us those three panels of Namor lying there all stabbed and pissed off with the T’Challa dialogue captions, just keep everything off-panel once T’Challa and Black Bolt bail, and that would have not been a cheat. I was able to read what Black Bolt said this time, so that was fun. It will definitely be an interesting dynamic to see what happens next with evil teen Reed and the not-so-ended Cabal.

STAR WARS #2 — This issue had quite a sophomore slump to overcome after that slam-dunk first blast, but I am thrilled to report that this is enough action, excitement, and wonder to do the job. We understandably skip the first three pages of titles from last issue and go straight to the crawl before picking up where we left off with Luke and Vader, whose lightsabers clash for the first time at the bottom of the first page of sequentials. Hardcore purists might balk at the retcon of placing this first encounter before EMPIRE, and they’ve got a point, but as long as such a thing is in service of a gripping story, then I’m okay with it, as is the case here. Vader just starting to recognize his old lightsaber is amazing. Of course, Vader is more than a match for Luke in these first weeks after The Battle of Yavin and is just on the verge of killing him before Han and the gang stomp through the roof with an AT-AT, naturally. All the characterization is perfect, Han & Leia bickering, Threepio’s absolute ineptitude, the whole deal. I can’t decide if Luke’s line about bull’s-eyeing womp rats is too precious for its own good, is almost my only hitch. Vader using the Force on the walker before Leia opens fire on him is lovely. This one rockets to a close fast, which is a good choice. It’s better not to string us along with some five-issue written-for-the-trade arc, just get the next thing going. Vader’s last line is also maybe a little bit too fanboyish for my taste. It would be better for Aaron to just write quality new dialogue rather than shoehorn in a bunch of favorite quotes from the original trilogy, particularly when these characters haven’t even uttered those famous lines yet in this timeline. Cassaday/Martin completely knock it out of the park once again. Hope they’re staying on for another issue or two. Minor dialogue quibbles aside, this one is still tremendous fun all around.

HAWKEYE #021 — First of all, actually, only of all, I must confess that for whatever misunderstanding and Internet-comprehension-related difficulties, I somehow thought that this was the final issue of the run, and so kept making excuses not to hit it until three in the morning of actually the Wednesday after it came out. Because I have so much trouble saying goodbye to things that I love and was just in denial? Active denial. But it seemed a blasphemy to hold it out past a whole entire other week. And so of course, every single Aja page assumed so much more weight and import, this was The Last Time and it almost didn’t even matter exactly how it all went down, I was just so grateful for the ride all this time, etc, etc. But this misconception elevated that final joyful Pizza Dog panel right up way past the sublime when I realized that apparently there’s one more of these things still on the way. I don’t care if it takes another year. I just hope Clint makes up with Kate. And maybe even kisses her. He’s such a doof.

(BEST OF WEEK: I kind of want to give it to HAWKEYE, but then there’s also STAR WARS hanging out, and it’s really about a tie for me between those two, but then you’ve got two Morrison originals plus that insane Moore swan song up top. Final verdict: this week is too close to call!)

ACTION COMICS #39 — I am really not getting tired of bearded Superman, but organic-steel-bearded Superman is even more fun. And then a line like, “We’re just MORTAL—eventually, you’re going to lose us all,” has to come along and wreck the good vibes. The one-page flashback to the aftermath of the Kents’ death at the Lang household was sweet too, and but then, there was nothing but wreckage as bleak and desolate as the day is long until the simplicity of the sweet syllables, “Ah, Lana,” save us all. Even from the sound-effect on that last panel, I hope.

DETECTIVE COMICS #39 — So, it’s Harley Quinn variant cover month, apparently? That really confused me at first. I got the ACTION, DETECTIVE, and GRAYSON ones and thought it was some sort of cross-over at first. People really like her! But the issue at hand. The art continues to be absolutely terrific. Buccellato’s work on colors, in particular, is soaring and has never looked better. Scriptwise, I am not a fan of Batman and Bullock just saying that the unfortunately named Yip did it on Page Two. That’s a pretty crucial plot-point to just exposit right away after last month’s cliffhanger. You know what, though? These guys can draw snow falling like nobody’s business.

GRAYSON #7 — It is always a little bit of a shame when we pull a fill-in for Brother Janin. I would not mind waiting for the great goods, DC Sales Force! This Mooney guy’s work here is a little bit stiffer than I remember seeing on ETERNAL a few weeks back. Which can be all right in other situations, but Janin has us conditioned to expect this living breathing hyper-fluid super-dynamic really badass photo-realistic kind of Neal Adams/Alan Davis type of thing. Oh, and Hitch. I wouldn’t mind so much if Midnighter would just quit asking for a Door to remind me how it can be. I kept thinking that this Clutch guy was supposed to embody the band Clutch and having to remind myself that this was not the case. Yes, I’m a New World Samurai. The page with the kiss is of course the most fun of the issue, but as great as the “clean thoughts” reference was probably intended to be, all I could think was, “Didn’t Alan Moore script that line for Jason?” Silly reboots! Probably hacking away at continuity is never the call. But what is Fleischer doing here at last? The Sensational Character Find of 2015 is here! And but that last page is the first serious misfire of this book. “A better world.” A better world?!? I’m pretty sure that directly referencing the initial Ellis/Hitch THE AUTHORITY arc is only going to make even this terrific series suffer by comparison, but for God’s sake, don’t half-ass it and tweak “finer” over to “better.” I’m all for spending a little bit more time with our antagonist to add character depth, but it’s been a long time since he was a member of one of the most influential teams of the modern age.

BATMAN ETERNAL #44 — That is one clean EVS cover! And solid art from Aco. Who- or whatever an Aco is. The names of people, these days. I love the map with the requisite creator love (SEE: Janson Building and K. Jones Convention Center), but I’m not sure what set of circumstances makes “th” acceptable to place after “433” instead of “rd.” Good call on punching Stephanie in the face, Harper. This is not what all the people who have been clamoring for her return have been pining for, I am certain. So, apparently Caracas is a real place in Venezuela. I had a series of synapse firings that caused me to initially read that as Carcosa, and I got all messed up again. “Expecting Gotham police to stop Batman”? You certainly should have known damn well better, Achilles Milo. Come on, now!

FUTURES END #40 — Wildfire’s “Humph!” is silly but great fun nonetheless. I also dig Bruce giving Tim shit about responsibility. Also, Katar calling Ray “Dr. Genius.” This one is really chock-full of the zingers. What a last page, though, man. Zircher tears it up once again.  

AMERICAN VAMPIRE: SECOND CYCLE #6 — It’s been quite a little while since the first arc of this second volume. And there was a decent enough gap between that and the original run that I have forgotten most of the ancillary characters and their lineage. Like, I remember that Felicia Book maybe had a dad who was a big deal in an earlier arc? The only ones I still really know about are of course Skinner and I’m pretty sure that the female lead is Pearl/Dolly, our initial protagonist from the very first arc. Maybe I’ve been glamoured by one of these things? At any rate, there’s not just a lot of action in this issue, which is a bit of a risk returning from such a hiatus, but Snyder gives us enough big answers about overall mythology that it feels more like a creepy story at the campfire than the massive info-dump that it also is. And what a set-up! I am all in on “Vampires in Space.” Every time! Albuquerque’s work continues to be a thing of total sequential glory. Bring on #2 right away, please.

SUPERMAN #38 — Well, this was certainly explosive enough. Is this the first issue of The New 52 to actually slip through into the following month? A little bit embarrassing after that “January 2015” ad ran in all of the issues last month. Some folks might kvetch about how many pages are taken up with just exploding solar flare madness, but they made a big enough deal of the oh-my-gosh New Power that I would have been disappointed with anything less. I’m not as much a fan of the resolution to this arc’s climax as I am the epilogue. Of COURSE he wakes up in the Bat-Cave. Where else would be the default facility for recuperation? The absolute best part though is the hope that our hero inspires in Jimmy. In this day and age, I am totally okay with Johns just straight up spelling it out and telling us that the reason that our guy is the first and still-greatest hero is that he inspires. He creates hope. Give that to me every Wednesday night, man. We can all do good. We can all be better. We can all of us fly.