5/27/15

BEST OF WEEK: SANDMAN: OVERTURE #5 — A lot of expectation, really a massive amount, builds up in between these issues, just because the wait has been so long in the first place and is certainly no easier to take between installments. It is then incumbent upon the creators to deliver a very serious amount of bang for the buck each and every time in order to meet the very high standards that the most loyal readers find themselves almost involuntarily firing up to astronomical heights as the issues tick by. So here we are at the penultimate issue of this prequel series, and Gaiman/Williams/Stewart/Klein once again knock it out of the park, doing their utmost to push the medium as far forward as possible while still, above all, telling a story that engages us, a story that matters. How do you make trapping your protagonist in a black hole appealing in a visual medium? Look no further than the genius of J.H. Williams III. We already met Dream’s father, so I can’t believe that I was surprised to find him calling upon his mother, as well. Their dialogue rings true and timeless. But it is the scenes with the Book of Destiny in which Williams’s prowess elevates the entire situation, actually splitting a page from Dream’s eldest brother’s book across our own page turn so that we read the panels vertically with one interpretation that makes perfect sense the first time only to turn the page and learn that we have let our eye travel vertically down the bisected left half of the page when we should have waited to have access to the right side first, which we can only know after our own page turn. It kind of makes my head hurt. And that’s before the three-dimensional ship that Destiny claims is not in his book even as it bulges up out of the page. The page on the comic book page. My head. The script is symphonic. The art is virtuoso. I do not trust that Dream of Cats. This series will be over far too soon for my liking, no matter how long it takes the final issue to ever be released.

CONVERGENCE: SHAZAM #2 — This one right here is just the bee’s knees. Head and shoulders and even torso above every other CONVERGENCE-related thing I’ve read or even heard of, this creative team’s work is a revelation. Parker provides a pitch-perfect script that is a great tonal fit for the Marvel Family, casting recent questions like, “What if Billy Batson was an asshole?” off to the abyss that they deserve. I love him reveling in his newly-returned power of flight or especially the involuntary “Neat,” when he sees Batman’s wings. I’ve never heard of this Evan “Doc” Shaner prior to this series, but the man absolutely puts it down. That double-page lightning-crackle spread with Marvel at the top and Billy at the bottom is first-rate business. As is every other page on this thing, though, it should be said. And Jordie Bellaire continues to take the industry by storm with more perfectly chosen hues throughout that always enhance the overall story without calling attention to themselves individually. And all of that is before the Gotham by Gaslight guy shows up. The original Elseworlds business! The shot of all of Batman’s villains tricked out for the Victorian Age is gorgeous and horrifying. Highest possible convergent recommendation.

CONVERGENCE: DETECTIVE COMICS #2 — Man, Cowan/Sienkiewicz/Sotomayor show up with the serious art. Really good-looking scratchy pages. And Wein fills this one with plenty of heart. I really dig the relationship between Dick & Helena and am glad to get a cop-out to last issue’s cliffhanger. Quality work, here.

CONVERGENCE: FLASH #2 — I missed this one last week. A pretty solid offering, if veering a bit too meta occasionally with Barry and this genius Superman calling bullshit on the premise that they’re supposed to be selling in this very title and even none-too-obliquely referring to Didio himself. Everything plays out the way it ought to, though, with Barry’s looming pivotal role in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8 rendering him immune from being defeated. And some Kirby krackle to seal the deal on the way out, good fun.

ALL-NEW HAWKEYE #3 — I find myself increasingly torn on this book. Taken on its own, it’s terrific. Jeff Lemire scripts a fast-moving and engaging adventure with the two Hawkeyes trading quips and generally demonstrating charming chemistry throughout, but then Lemire being Lemire, he has to throw in the juxtaposition of the wide-eyed wonder of Clint as a little brother to Barney as they are on the cusp of apparently falling under the tutelage of the Swordsman. So, all of that works on the level of a mentor/mentee relationship down through the years, and we get nice little reveals like the knife at the end of this issue. And Ramon Perez draws the heeeeeeeeell out of this. He’s got his own painted heavily watercolored style happening for the scenes with the Barton brothers, and then colorist Ian Herring and he do an amazing riff on the sparse flat-colored thing that Aja and Hollingsworth perfected in the first volume. But therein lies the rub. If you just handed a new fan this volume without any context, you would get a one-hundred percent verdict of This Is Damn Awesome, Best Hawkeye Ever! But there’s this weird vibe where they’re doing such an uncanny cover version of the previous volume, only instead of it being set in Clint’s building in Bed/Stuy and pointedly about what happens when Clint isn’t being an Avenger, they went and just paraphased Claremont’s old Wolverine slogan with, “what they do when they do what they do best,” which I’m sure is meant to be charming and cute, but it just scans as kind of eerie. Maybe it wouldn’t be the case if the final issue of the first volume had come out first. But, it just feels, I don’t know, a bit disrespectful? Derivative? Eerie? Methadone as opposed to the mainline Fraction/Aja/Hollingsworth straight stuff? I feel like I’m almost betraying the first volume I loved so much by giving this the thumbs-up. Totally strange deal. Um, this is a really well-crafted comic book?

OLD MAN LOGAN #1 — I loved those Eva Bell annuals that Sorrentino drew and was expecting to love the hell out of this, and that’s just what happened. Bendis takes Millar’s rock-solid concept and runs with it, giving us all sorts of fun for such an extended portion of the issue that I was actually surprised when he reminds us that this is all still on Battleworld and there’s still Doom and a Wall and all that, so then of course, we get what we want right away on the last page. I’m not spoiling one detail of this, but if the concept and/or creative team is in any way intriguing to you, I highly recommend jumping all over this. Terrific fun and all kinds of SNIKT! to be had throughout, rest in peace, you old Canucklehead.

CHEW #49 — Layman does terrific work making this issue engaging all on its own even while very clearly setting up all of the pieces for the last act of this entertaining and wonderfully unique series. The tenderness in Mason & Olive’s moment totally blindsided me. Very deft work with the characterization of that relationship to bring us to this point. And Guillory’s pages look as tremendous as ever. Very much looking forward to #50, which I suppose is going to be some kind of pretty big deal, given everything that’s sliding into place here.

PROVIDENCE #1 — Well, we began the evening with a rare sequential appearance by our Neil Himself, so it is terribly proper that we conclude with his mentor and fellow quasi-prodigal writer Alan Moore dropping back in to the glorious world of singles, which I had heard was off the table for anything not pertaining to LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, but of course, he can’t stay away. Maybe just to show Nic Pizzolatto how he thinks it should be done? Because yes, Wednesday Night Faithful, though the word “Carcosa” is never uttered in this issue, Robert Chambers and his Yellow King are all up in here, which is never what you really want to stumble across in the very late night when you should have already gone to bed and the last light bulb is slowly but inexorably flickering toward burnout. I’m not terribly familiar with prime Lovecraft text, only read “In the Mountains of Madness,” and other than that, have only directly experienced him through his massive influence on subsequent generations, but this appears to be a sort of prequel story set in the Lovecraft world of 1919, presumably just before all of the really horrible shit with the Ancient Ones kicks off. In stark contrast to this set-up, Jacen Burrows channels his hardest Dave Gibbons and provides plenty of zooming and panning camera shots that take us through an immaculately rendered Manhattan of nearly one hundred years ago. Things are really only getting started, but the journal in the backmatter helps the reader dial in to the protagonist to even greater effect than the sequential pages. The very fact that nothing overtly sinister or evil transpires this issue imbues the proceedings with a creeping, slow-burning sense of dread that I believe would warm even old Howard Phillips’s cold, black heart.