What a week! There were 16 books in my folder! That’s too many. Had to make some hard choices and leave the two from Brubaker and OSBORN and AMERICAN VAMPIRE behind for the moment, but there was still more than enough to keep me up very late into the night.
BATMAN INCORPORATED #5—I’m, I’m not even sure what happened in this thing. Is Morrison weaving a quantum narrative? It totally looks like Doctor Dedalus kills that UN guy on Page 3, but then the guy’s okay in the fifth panel and you’re like, All right, the coloring went all red, that was just in the doc’s imagination. Because they’re still talking. Only later in the issue, the guy keels over. Was that just a harbinger? The poison kicked in at the end? Really love that shot of The Hood’s masterspy plane rocketing across pages 4 and 5, that is how you drop the titles. You’ve got to love how starstruck Batwoman is when she meets Bruce. Paquette drops a fight-scene layout that can stand up to the greatness we’ve come to expect of late after offerings from Quitely, Stewart, and Williams. Okay, but who was the old man, if not Netz? What is the method to Morrison’s madness? This one really has me scratching my head.
FF #2—Still really loving this book. What’s not to adore about the Thing vs. Doom before taking a powder to go get drunk with Sue Richards, Spider-Man wowing the Future Foundation with his intellect and then Reed’s finger hovering over the button that will wipe Doctor Doom’s despotic intellect clean? And a hell of a cliffhanger. This is why you don’t wait for the trade, my lovelies! One of the best books on the stands, and the best that this title has been in a long, long time.
THE MIGHTY THOR #1—These renumbering hijinks are getting pretty tedious, but let’s talk about the content. This one really hits the ground running as Fraction is joined by JMS stalwart Olivier Coipel and the always unbelievable Laura Martin. And they knock it out of the park. I mean, this thing is gorgeous. The washes of color as Thor and Sif are diving down to secure the worldheart are breathtaking. Plot-wise, this issue is all set-up, but it is so much fun to look at, you’ve got to take at least another couple of passes through. Sure it’s going to get quite insane before all is said and done. A hell of a thing to have on the rack when the Branagh bomb drops, when are theaters going to start selling related comics in the lobby?
AVENGERS #12.1—Wow, Hitch/Neary are completely on fire, here. Quite the effect, bringing the original ULTIMATES art team over to the 616 proper. I actually smacked my forehead when I made it to the spaceknight twist at the end, can’t believe no one’s ever thought of that. Ah, Bendis. Funny, too, that the last page is still that medium/almost-headshot zoom that Millar wrote for Hitch at least 25% of the time, maybe that’s just the way dude likes to end an issue. Of course, Bendis has like five times as much dialogue, more for your money. This certainly accomplishes its stated mission of telling an engaging story that will hopefully draw in new readers. Or, hey, just making an extra $3 off everyone who buys the thing, anyway.
UNCANNY X-MEN #536—Tonally, this is right where I want this book to be. Gillen’s hitting all the correct beats pretty much out of the gate and the Dodsons are in fine form, as ever. An interesting follow-up to all of those astonishing shenanigans from a few years ago. The $4 cover price is, however, galling.
MORNING GLORIES #9—Mm, this one left me a little cold, but the twin thing in general seems pretty played out, nothing about this approach seemed new or interesting to me. Kind of ready to get the next arc started (or, more like, ready to reach the sure-to-be-out-of-left-field epilogue to the last issue of these single –centrics).
FLASH #11—So, Manipul’s gone? That’s a shame. A casualty of this title being a flagship of the Next Big Event, no doubt. Kolins’s painted thing isn’t quite the look I’m feeling for this one. Real sorry the initial creative team is already history, that first arc was pretty much perfect.
DETECTIVE COMICS #876—And speaking of pretty much perfect, these guys nail every aspect of this. Was expecting great things from a Snyder/Jock run and have not been disappointed. If anything, Jock has cranked it up since the first arc. The centerpiece of the issue is, of course, Gordon’s conversation with Dick, which was very well handled in terms of both Snyder’s beats and Jock’s angle choices. I guess Gordon can never, will never be allowed to just come right out and say it, but, I mean, he KNOWS, right? Yeah, yeah, he does.
BRIGHTEST DAY #24—Well, it’s over. This was easily the best (semi-)weekly since the probably-never-to-be-repeated 52, and the art was even better. We got a really nice moment with Dove and Boston to shut down their arc. And an approach to Swamp Thing that is pretty much the diametric opposite of the nuanced psychological horror work with the character that first put Alan Moore on the map thirty years ago. I enjoyed the ride and only considered dropping the book once or twice this past year, but now that I’ve come to the end (and, granted, had both big moments of these last two issues spoiled for me by nincompoops), kind of wish I’d spent my $74 on something else.
ACTION COMICS #900—This beast. Hard to know where to start with this thing. I guess we’ll go in order. Okay, deep breath.
First of all, what we have here is the finale to the Lex Luthor story that’s been running since #890, and I’ve made no secret of really enjoying it every step of the way. However. In addition to being Part 11 to THE BLACK RING, this is also Part 6 to a Doomsday story that’s been running through a bunch of random titles this month. How is this thing going to read in trade? It’s ridiculous. Completely out of nowhere, we have Steel and Superboy and Supergirl and Cyborg Hank Henshaw Superman and maybe the Superman 1,000,000 of the 853rd Century I want to say? suddenly duking it out with an uberDoomsday. What should be a huge moment, Superman returning to this title for the first time in almost a year, is completely undercut by the feeling that I’ve picked up the wrong book because what the hell is going on here and where’s the star of the show I’ve been following all this time? Luthor does not appear until Page 8 and exits the stage with another eight pages still to go. Meaning in a 51-page climax, our protagonist does not appear for fifteen pages. That’s a third of the story! And then we’re supposed to just accept it and barrel on into the next big thing, the premise of which seems more than a bit laughable at first blush. I don’t know. It was better the second time, but still quite a disappointment. Interested to see what Cornell’s going to do now that the big guy’s back, but, bummer.
And then my man Lindelof shows up and crushes ten pages with Ryan Sook. The end of this thing hit me in the gut. Like, it hit me almost as hard the second time back through, when I knew exactly what was coming. Powerful stuff. As far as Lindelof goes, this is pretty standard L O S T fare, the season has just started and here’s a situation that we don’t fully understand at first and hey who are these guys, what exactly are they talking about? and then he drops the bomb, oh my gods, we’re on the Island and it’s the 70s! That controlled disorientation seems to be the main weapon Lindelof has in his narrative arsenal, but I guess as long as it keeps blowing people up, he’s getting the job done.
The Dini story was kind of weird, I didn’t really see the point.
The Johns/Frank thing was such a tease! I was loving it, turned to that double-page spread and was all pumped for what was going to happen next, all kinds of great banter just around the corner. But, no, that was it. Fill in the blanks yourself.
And then we come to the nine pages that everyone’s talking about. Taken on its own, the story made sense to me. The ending was a bit hokey. I think it was pretty brave of DC to greenlight it. They had to be expecting a backlash. I guess. I mean, I would think that something like that, they would realize that it was a really big deal and kind of be ready with the hype and spin, but it seems like they were caught flat-footed. Can’t believe they threw that switch and came back with, “We have no plans to follow up on this.” Really? Then why do it in the first place? Can’t fathom it.
The Donner storyboards, wish they would have just gotten Sean Chen or someone to draw sequentials, it was a decent story, but came across as filler in this format after the rest.
Quite the bargain for $6, though, I have to say!
BEST OF WEEK is too close to call. It totally would have been ACTION, but that Doomsday malarkey soured me. The first three I read were all pretty wonderful and would have taken it any other week if not for the presence of the other two.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
4/20/11
AVENGERS #12—The A-list team of Bendis/Romita/Janson brings this second arc to a very satisfying conclusion. These guys are at the top of their game and delivering exactly what I want from my blockbuster Avengers comic. Great set-up with Stark getting the gauntlet, Bendis dropping the character beat master strokes. And even a believable double-back about Thanos. Bendis got me twice, first with the penultimate page (Oh noes, Tony, not aGAIN!), then with that last page, really didn’t see that coming at all. I hope he knows what the next ILLUMINATI series is about and that Cheung’s drawing it as soon as he gets done with these two years’ worth of YOUNG AVENGERS sequel.
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #503—The lead story is all well and good, sets up FEAR ITSELF like you’d expect, but I really really dug on that “How I Met Your Mother” with Chaykin. I bet Fraction was just freaking out, I know AMERICAN FLAGG is a really big and formative deal for him. This one’s very much worth your $4, thanks, all.
GENERATION HOPE #6—These guys seem to be doing an even better job finding their footing as we open the second arc. I’ve very much enjoyed the series thus far, but it’s apparent that Gillen is even more laser-sight locked in than ever, knows exactly where he wants to take these kids and has the right people to help get them there. With Gillen having created all of these characters but Hope from scratch and also just getting cranked up over on UNCANNY, we’ve suddenly got the potential to relive the mid-80s Claremont UNCANNY/NEW MUTANTS heyday all over again. You just need $7 a month to enjoy the ride now, as opposed to a buck twenty.
X-FACTOR #218—Gorgeous! I’ve gone on before about Emanuela Lupachinno’s work here, but this issue takes it to a new level. PAD is still the master of the long game. This has been and remains just a hell of a run on characters that nobody gave a damn about until the right people gave them life.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #12—The art looks pretty good. The story moves pretty well. I might still be experiencing Legion fatigue. Story still developing.
GREEN LANTERN #65—Guy and Hal rock the buddy cop vibe better than most. This was a pretty satisfying issue all on its own, no mean feat, considering I skipped the parts 2 and 3 that have happened since #64. I’m really grooving on the artistic space that Mahnke is occupying, even five different inkers couldn’t muddle up the greatness, though I’m driving myself crazy playing guess-the-inker with those shots of them in the cockpit (and, since I brought it up without meaning to, there was just no need for the homoeroticism. Bad call, there). But yeah, we get dropped off in an interesting place, making parts 5 and 6 pretty difficult to ignore. Of course, NOW I’m thinking about picking up GL CORPS after finally appreciating Gleason’s work and he’s already shipped off to Gotham.
FABLES #104—This arc continues to delight as the F-Men get thrown into hypothetical combat and Buckingham/Leialoha drop the serious Kirby thunder like it’s no big deal. And it looks like things with that big bad wolf and his dad have approached critical mass, next issue is going to be just a hell of a thing.
TINY TITANS #39—What else can you say about an issue whose central plot point is that Supergirl cons Alfred into throwing all of the red capes in the Wayne Manor laundry with all the Bat-family's costumes and everything comes out pink, so everybody's just dealing with that for the rest of the issue, plus they just slap SMALLVILLE across the face with that Pink Blur barb? Do I have anything to add? I do not, except that I hope this series never, ever gets cancelled. Or progresses, even. Maintains a rhythm more in the neighborhood of THE SIMPSONS. I mean, obviously, Balthazar & Franco are building, but I'm trying to say, I hope in 18 years, this book is still coming out monthly and all these kids are still enrolled at Sidekick Elementary and Slade is still the principal and Darkseid is still the lunch lady. There's no way that situation in which comedy is certain to ensue ever, ever gets more perfect. I feel so fortunate that this, of all possibilities, is what I am required to read to my little girl, every day and all the time.
EDITED ONE WEEK AND ABOUT A DOZEN READS LATER TO ADD: I would love to know how many kids read this and then actually, when the coast was clear, dumped a vest, some short shorts, and a bunch of red and green and yellow food coloring in the washing machine to make a Robin costume. I mean, even if it's like 1% of the readers, that's still 40-something kids.
SUPER DINOSAUR #1—This is pretty much a pitch-perfect first issue. Same especially goes for the first page. That is how you do it. I suspect that Mister Bob Kirkman has been around the block a time or two with this sequential narrative game, here. Since Derek Dynamo’s such a genius, I could maybe do with him not misusing “awesome” the way that every other English speaker seems to be doing of late (same goes for “literally” and “epic”), but he’s still a kid, so it’s a defendable decision. Jason Howard’s come a long way since that first issue of ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN and knocks these pages out. Most importantly, I believe that these guys have executed their goal, to create an exciting title full of wow and wonder that anyone of any age can get in on the ground floor with, that tickles all of those Silver Age synapses that Lee, Kirby & friends did such a wonderful job activating fifty years ago. WAIT. If FANTASTIC FOUR #1 was cover-dated June 1961, doesn’t that mean it came out right around now fifty years ago? Shouldn’t, shouldn’t something be done about that?
****
BEST OF WEEK: Well, I fear that I might have walked away from this week’s winner by not picking up the reboot of the DARK HORSE PRESENTS anthology, but I have never read CONCRETE, probably to my detriment, but that simply wasn’t a draw for me, not to mention I could not give less than a shit about 300 2: 301, and at that point, even with Adams and Corben, the $8 cover price was just a little too steep when I know that book’s going to be waiting for me at Half Price Books in just a very few weeks (that place is a treasure horde, today I found PLANETARY #1 and all three REDs in the quarter bin, absurd). Of what I read . . . I don’t know, it might be too close to call. AVENGERS and FABLES and SUPER DINOSAUR were all pretty much the same redline level of wonderful. Or really, TINY TITANS, even. Give it to Kirkman/Howard, just for pretending to be rooks.
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #503—The lead story is all well and good, sets up FEAR ITSELF like you’d expect, but I really really dug on that “How I Met Your Mother” with Chaykin. I bet Fraction was just freaking out, I know AMERICAN FLAGG is a really big and formative deal for him. This one’s very much worth your $4, thanks, all.
GENERATION HOPE #6—These guys seem to be doing an even better job finding their footing as we open the second arc. I’ve very much enjoyed the series thus far, but it’s apparent that Gillen is even more laser-sight locked in than ever, knows exactly where he wants to take these kids and has the right people to help get them there. With Gillen having created all of these characters but Hope from scratch and also just getting cranked up over on UNCANNY, we’ve suddenly got the potential to relive the mid-80s Claremont UNCANNY/NEW MUTANTS heyday all over again. You just need $7 a month to enjoy the ride now, as opposed to a buck twenty.
X-FACTOR #218—Gorgeous! I’ve gone on before about Emanuela Lupachinno’s work here, but this issue takes it to a new level. PAD is still the master of the long game. This has been and remains just a hell of a run on characters that nobody gave a damn about until the right people gave them life.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #12—The art looks pretty good. The story moves pretty well. I might still be experiencing Legion fatigue. Story still developing.
GREEN LANTERN #65—Guy and Hal rock the buddy cop vibe better than most. This was a pretty satisfying issue all on its own, no mean feat, considering I skipped the parts 2 and 3 that have happened since #64. I’m really grooving on the artistic space that Mahnke is occupying, even five different inkers couldn’t muddle up the greatness, though I’m driving myself crazy playing guess-the-inker with those shots of them in the cockpit (and, since I brought it up without meaning to, there was just no need for the homoeroticism. Bad call, there). But yeah, we get dropped off in an interesting place, making parts 5 and 6 pretty difficult to ignore. Of course, NOW I’m thinking about picking up GL CORPS after finally appreciating Gleason’s work and he’s already shipped off to Gotham.
FABLES #104—This arc continues to delight as the F-Men get thrown into hypothetical combat and Buckingham/Leialoha drop the serious Kirby thunder like it’s no big deal. And it looks like things with that big bad wolf and his dad have approached critical mass, next issue is going to be just a hell of a thing.
TINY TITANS #39—What else can you say about an issue whose central plot point is that Supergirl cons Alfred into throwing all of the red capes in the Wayne Manor laundry with all the Bat-family's costumes and everything comes out pink, so everybody's just dealing with that for the rest of the issue, plus they just slap SMALLVILLE across the face with that Pink Blur barb? Do I have anything to add? I do not, except that I hope this series never, ever gets cancelled. Or progresses, even. Maintains a rhythm more in the neighborhood of THE SIMPSONS. I mean, obviously, Balthazar & Franco are building, but I'm trying to say, I hope in 18 years, this book is still coming out monthly and all these kids are still enrolled at Sidekick Elementary and Slade is still the principal and Darkseid is still the lunch lady. There's no way that situation in which comedy is certain to ensue ever, ever gets more perfect. I feel so fortunate that this, of all possibilities, is what I am required to read to my little girl, every day and all the time.
EDITED ONE WEEK AND ABOUT A DOZEN READS LATER TO ADD: I would love to know how many kids read this and then actually, when the coast was clear, dumped a vest, some short shorts, and a bunch of red and green and yellow food coloring in the washing machine to make a Robin costume. I mean, even if it's like 1% of the readers, that's still 40-something kids.
SUPER DINOSAUR #1—This is pretty much a pitch-perfect first issue. Same especially goes for the first page. That is how you do it. I suspect that Mister Bob Kirkman has been around the block a time or two with this sequential narrative game, here. Since Derek Dynamo’s such a genius, I could maybe do with him not misusing “awesome” the way that every other English speaker seems to be doing of late (same goes for “literally” and “epic”), but he’s still a kid, so it’s a defendable decision. Jason Howard’s come a long way since that first issue of ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN and knocks these pages out. Most importantly, I believe that these guys have executed their goal, to create an exciting title full of wow and wonder that anyone of any age can get in on the ground floor with, that tickles all of those Silver Age synapses that Lee, Kirby & friends did such a wonderful job activating fifty years ago. WAIT. If FANTASTIC FOUR #1 was cover-dated June 1961, doesn’t that mean it came out right around now fifty years ago? Shouldn’t, shouldn’t something be done about that?
****
BEST OF WEEK: Well, I fear that I might have walked away from this week’s winner by not picking up the reboot of the DARK HORSE PRESENTS anthology, but I have never read CONCRETE, probably to my detriment, but that simply wasn’t a draw for me, not to mention I could not give less than a shit about 300 2: 301, and at that point, even with Adams and Corben, the $8 cover price was just a little too steep when I know that book’s going to be waiting for me at Half Price Books in just a very few weeks (that place is a treasure horde, today I found PLANETARY #1 and all three REDs in the quarter bin, absurd). Of what I read . . . I don’t know, it might be too close to call. AVENGERS and FABLES and SUPER DINOSAUR were all pretty much the same redline level of wonderful. Or really, TINY TITANS, even. Give it to Kirkman/Howard, just for pretending to be rooks.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
4/13/11
For all the iridescent Michelangelo and white knights over Gotham, this right here was not a very light week. *dodge*
S.H.I.E.L.D. #∞—A delight and treasure. Wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about any offering from this series not drawn by Dustin Weaver, but the random Italian-sounding fellas they got to draw these four parts all delivered solid pages. Though we possibly peak early with Nick Pitarra doing the first part, “Colossus.” I mean, that right there might have been cooler than anything that happened in the first volume. Your mind just redlines, at some point. And for me, that would be the shot of Newton strangling John Locke being a straight lift from L O S T 5.07. OVERLOAD. This is my favorite thing from Marvel in forever.
SECRET WARRIORS #26—Of course, when you take all three of Hickman’s Marvel books as a whole, it’s a whole new level of mental devastation. I don’t guess there’s a single creator that I’m digging on more at the moment. And this is a big one, right here. With only three issues left to go, counting this one, Hickman flips it all around upside down once again with not one but two major reveals that will add quite the depth to rereading this entire run all in one go. This series should have gotten a bit more of a push from corporate, a smart, well-constructed character piece with a coherent beginning, middle, and end, along with more twists and turns than a winding mountain road that will surely carry through to some sort of shocking and impossible to forecast conclusion. I can’t wait.
NEW AVENGERS #11—Man, maybe it’s just because I was at the Lubbock Comic Book Expo, but my man Chaykin seems to have done nothing but con sketches for this one. Need a little shadow under the neck? Quick squiggly marker line’ll set you straight. Note to editors: please, please do not put ads opposite splash pages. It almost completely nullifies their effect. I get that we have to have ads, but maybe put them somewhere where they don’t completely wreck the momentum of the narrative that we also helped subsidize? Deodato continues to kill it. Bendis, though, man, what he does with Fury’s speech, folding the name Avengers up into retribution for the Holocaust, just a hell of a trick. Almost seems to come out of nowhere, but of course the precedent’s been set by that first ALL-STAR COMICS cover. Some pretty fierce writing from a very busy man. And then he crushes it with the Hellcat-centric oral history, which, who saw that coming?
UNCANNY X-FORCE #7—Believe the hype on this one. Not since Morrison was behind the wheel has an X-book had this out of control feeling that anything could happen. Isad Ribic gives us some excellent Escher spaces that are very well complemented by Matthew Wilson’s colors. It’s nice to see someone not ignoring all the toys that Morrison lobbed on into the mythos. This has to be the best $4 Marvel book that I’m not buying (Thanks, Tommy!).
UNCANNY X-MEN #535—Ah, I liked this twice as much as the point-1. Why can’t the Dodsons just never go away? I was all primed and pumped for a sweet four-pager of Peter and Kitty recreating Scott and Jean’s famous New Mexico butte scene (oh, yes I did!) minus the consummation, so of course Gillen’s got to pull the rug out on page 2. And a Peter/Kitty fastball special is an inspired bit of fanboy wankery, wonder if he just thought of that or has been wanting to do it for ten years. Highly recommended for fans of Whedon/Cassaday’s original ASTONISHING run. Though, hey, maybe a double-pg ad spread spoiling the end of in-progress AGE OF X while advertising an X-FORCE issue that’s still four months away might be just a bit premature by a couple of weeks, you guys?
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #622—I couldn’t believe how excellent this one was. Gillen really turns it on here, digs deeper than I’ve seen from him in terms of just classical storytelling. Nails the tone of what a proper Asgard tale should be. And Braithwaite/Arreola’s art is exceptional. Dammit, Marvel! You’ve got me on the hook for another $4 book. Too, quite the bit fo weirdness, I finally got around to Radiohead's new album and actually had "Good Morning, Mr. Magpie" caught in my head when I started reading this issue. Was duly horrified to find all of those fellows flying around. Possibly one has nothing to do with the other, but with Gillen involved, I suspect that not to be the case.
JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN vol. 2 #5—This book makes you almost think that it’s the final testament of a brilliant creative mind dissolving before your eyes right there on the paper, like Frank Miller or what I’ve heard about post-YOUNG LIARS Lapham (light a candle for YL and blow it out and swear you don’t smell smoke), but it’s so so measured, like, to a sociopathic extent, even though you get whiplash at some point every issue from the rocket ninety-degree turns that the plot makes, it still seems like there might be some grand vision unifying all of this crazy. That cover for next month is pretty glorious. Still hanging with this one, grateful that it even exists.
BUTCHER BAKER: THE RIGHTEOUS MAKER #2—All right, with the introduction of the surviving rogues gallery, we get a bit more depth from the bench and a better idea of how things might go from here, which, I had no idea after the first issue. Still not in for the long haul, but this thing is still fucking nuts enough to keep me around a while longer.
THE UNWRITTEN #24—I forgot to be excited about this, another in-between arcs done-in-one. Which is probably a good thing, last time’s choose-your-own-adventure set the bar impossibly high, so it was good just to dive in to this creepy story of a group of talking animal characters’ never-ending ascent of a really really tall staircase. I really dug the art, Chuckry killed it on the tones, but I’m thinking this Davison fellow doesn’t usually ink Gross’s work. It’s usually just Gross? I don’t know, maybe apples and oranges, because Gross keeps changing his style up, depending upon what the story calls for, but I thought the art on this one was better than it usually is. If you’re a fan of stories about stories, you really need this one in your life.
ADVENTURE COMICS #525—Mm, this one kind of left me cold. The Jiminez artwork is of course glorious, but I’m not really caring about any of these characters. Which is the only metric that matters. The Levitz double-run might be heading toward probation.
FLASH #10—Parallel Barry Allen! Johns is doing a good job slowly cranking us up for the big event while, for the moment, still somewhat maintaining the street-level vibe he built into the premise. Good issue. Can’t believe they’re going to renumber it already. Hope it’s #400 or whatever, not another new #1.
SUPERBOY #6—We lose Pier Gallo and this is part 5 of a title-spanning event starring Doomsday, so right away we know that one of my favorite monthlies is going to be taking a bit of a dip in quality this month, despite Jeff Lemire’s best efforts. But, you know what? Still better than most things. Nice two-pager opening with Conner and Tim, followed by Ray Palmer trying to get Simon to work for him before, yeah, Doomsday just pummels our beloved clone all to hell. We can live for another month without Gallo, Marco Rudy does fine here, though I do hope Jamie Grant is back on every page next time.
BATMAN & ROBIN #22—Tomasi & Gleason wind up their first arc and I still can’t believe how much I’m digging on this title half a year after Morrison’s left the building. Gorgeous shot of Arkham when they drive in, Alex Sinclair takes it over the top. The cowl ear thing has to be one of the funniest, most wonderful Bat-modifications ever. And I love the answer to that first letter, dude asks something about #3 and Marts or whoever says, check page 23 of #13 for the answer. ????
****
BEST OF WEEK: CASANOVA: GULA #IV—This comic just gets me, man. It’s everything I want and need and didn’t even know I was lacking until it’s right there unfolding before my eyes in all its newly colored sequential glory. This one’s probably a pretty terrible gateway issue for new readers. As are they all. Moon is a force. Fraction is lightning. Cris Peter makes it beautiful, all over again. Newman Xeno is Thomas Pynchon. Maybe. Just that page alone makes this one of my favorite things ever. This book is a wonderful, insane fucking thing, and we are all the richer for the fact that it managed to punch its way through into this particular –brane. And, of course, I have no idea what the backup has to do with anything. Maybe we’ll find out in September. It’s going to be a long, hot summer.
S.H.I.E.L.D. #∞—A delight and treasure. Wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about any offering from this series not drawn by Dustin Weaver, but the random Italian-sounding fellas they got to draw these four parts all delivered solid pages. Though we possibly peak early with Nick Pitarra doing the first part, “Colossus.” I mean, that right there might have been cooler than anything that happened in the first volume. Your mind just redlines, at some point. And for me, that would be the shot of Newton strangling John Locke being a straight lift from L O S T 5.07. OVERLOAD. This is my favorite thing from Marvel in forever.
SECRET WARRIORS #26—Of course, when you take all three of Hickman’s Marvel books as a whole, it’s a whole new level of mental devastation. I don’t guess there’s a single creator that I’m digging on more at the moment. And this is a big one, right here. With only three issues left to go, counting this one, Hickman flips it all around upside down once again with not one but two major reveals that will add quite the depth to rereading this entire run all in one go. This series should have gotten a bit more of a push from corporate, a smart, well-constructed character piece with a coherent beginning, middle, and end, along with more twists and turns than a winding mountain road that will surely carry through to some sort of shocking and impossible to forecast conclusion. I can’t wait.
NEW AVENGERS #11—Man, maybe it’s just because I was at the Lubbock Comic Book Expo, but my man Chaykin seems to have done nothing but con sketches for this one. Need a little shadow under the neck? Quick squiggly marker line’ll set you straight. Note to editors: please, please do not put ads opposite splash pages. It almost completely nullifies their effect. I get that we have to have ads, but maybe put them somewhere where they don’t completely wreck the momentum of the narrative that we also helped subsidize? Deodato continues to kill it. Bendis, though, man, what he does with Fury’s speech, folding the name Avengers up into retribution for the Holocaust, just a hell of a trick. Almost seems to come out of nowhere, but of course the precedent’s been set by that first ALL-STAR COMICS cover. Some pretty fierce writing from a very busy man. And then he crushes it with the Hellcat-centric oral history, which, who saw that coming?
UNCANNY X-FORCE #7—Believe the hype on this one. Not since Morrison was behind the wheel has an X-book had this out of control feeling that anything could happen. Isad Ribic gives us some excellent Escher spaces that are very well complemented by Matthew Wilson’s colors. It’s nice to see someone not ignoring all the toys that Morrison lobbed on into the mythos. This has to be the best $4 Marvel book that I’m not buying (Thanks, Tommy!).
UNCANNY X-MEN #535—Ah, I liked this twice as much as the point-1. Why can’t the Dodsons just never go away? I was all primed and pumped for a sweet four-pager of Peter and Kitty recreating Scott and Jean’s famous New Mexico butte scene (oh, yes I did!) minus the consummation, so of course Gillen’s got to pull the rug out on page 2. And a Peter/Kitty fastball special is an inspired bit of fanboy wankery, wonder if he just thought of that or has been wanting to do it for ten years. Highly recommended for fans of Whedon/Cassaday’s original ASTONISHING run. Though, hey, maybe a double-pg ad spread spoiling the end of in-progress AGE OF X while advertising an X-FORCE issue that’s still four months away might be just a bit premature by a couple of weeks, you guys?
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #622—I couldn’t believe how excellent this one was. Gillen really turns it on here, digs deeper than I’ve seen from him in terms of just classical storytelling. Nails the tone of what a proper Asgard tale should be. And Braithwaite/Arreola’s art is exceptional. Dammit, Marvel! You’ve got me on the hook for another $4 book. Too, quite the bit fo weirdness, I finally got around to Radiohead's new album and actually had "Good Morning, Mr. Magpie" caught in my head when I started reading this issue. Was duly horrified to find all of those fellows flying around. Possibly one has nothing to do with the other, but with Gillen involved, I suspect that not to be the case.
JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN vol. 2 #5—This book makes you almost think that it’s the final testament of a brilliant creative mind dissolving before your eyes right there on the paper, like Frank Miller or what I’ve heard about post-YOUNG LIARS Lapham (light a candle for YL and blow it out and swear you don’t smell smoke), but it’s so so measured, like, to a sociopathic extent, even though you get whiplash at some point every issue from the rocket ninety-degree turns that the plot makes, it still seems like there might be some grand vision unifying all of this crazy. That cover for next month is pretty glorious. Still hanging with this one, grateful that it even exists.
BUTCHER BAKER: THE RIGHTEOUS MAKER #2—All right, with the introduction of the surviving rogues gallery, we get a bit more depth from the bench and a better idea of how things might go from here, which, I had no idea after the first issue. Still not in for the long haul, but this thing is still fucking nuts enough to keep me around a while longer.
THE UNWRITTEN #24—I forgot to be excited about this, another in-between arcs done-in-one. Which is probably a good thing, last time’s choose-your-own-adventure set the bar impossibly high, so it was good just to dive in to this creepy story of a group of talking animal characters’ never-ending ascent of a really really tall staircase. I really dug the art, Chuckry killed it on the tones, but I’m thinking this Davison fellow doesn’t usually ink Gross’s work. It’s usually just Gross? I don’t know, maybe apples and oranges, because Gross keeps changing his style up, depending upon what the story calls for, but I thought the art on this one was better than it usually is. If you’re a fan of stories about stories, you really need this one in your life.
ADVENTURE COMICS #525—Mm, this one kind of left me cold. The Jiminez artwork is of course glorious, but I’m not really caring about any of these characters. Which is the only metric that matters. The Levitz double-run might be heading toward probation.
FLASH #10—Parallel Barry Allen! Johns is doing a good job slowly cranking us up for the big event while, for the moment, still somewhat maintaining the street-level vibe he built into the premise. Good issue. Can’t believe they’re going to renumber it already. Hope it’s #400 or whatever, not another new #1.
SUPERBOY #6—We lose Pier Gallo and this is part 5 of a title-spanning event starring Doomsday, so right away we know that one of my favorite monthlies is going to be taking a bit of a dip in quality this month, despite Jeff Lemire’s best efforts. But, you know what? Still better than most things. Nice two-pager opening with Conner and Tim, followed by Ray Palmer trying to get Simon to work for him before, yeah, Doomsday just pummels our beloved clone all to hell. We can live for another month without Gallo, Marco Rudy does fine here, though I do hope Jamie Grant is back on every page next time.
BATMAN & ROBIN #22—Tomasi & Gleason wind up their first arc and I still can’t believe how much I’m digging on this title half a year after Morrison’s left the building. Gorgeous shot of Arkham when they drive in, Alex Sinclair takes it over the top. The cowl ear thing has to be one of the funniest, most wonderful Bat-modifications ever. And I love the answer to that first letter, dude asks something about #3 and Marts or whoever says, check page 23 of #13 for the answer. ????
****
BEST OF WEEK: CASANOVA: GULA #IV—This comic just gets me, man. It’s everything I want and need and didn’t even know I was lacking until it’s right there unfolding before my eyes in all its newly colored sequential glory. This one’s probably a pretty terrible gateway issue for new readers. As are they all. Moon is a force. Fraction is lightning. Cris Peter makes it beautiful, all over again. Newman Xeno is Thomas Pynchon. Maybe. Just that page alone makes this one of my favorite things ever. This book is a wonderful, insane fucking thing, and we are all the richer for the fact that it managed to punch its way through into this particular –brane. And, of course, I have no idea what the backup has to do with anything. Maybe we’ll find out in September. It’s going to be a long, hot summer.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
4/06/11
FEAR ITSELF #1—This one didn’t level me like I was expecting it to, based on the creative team. Mainly it’s because no matter how much I tried to dodge anything at all about this event, it still bled over to me that Odin put a whuppin down on his boy, and there’s only one other reveal that’s more of a headscratcher at this point. The art was certainly thunder. That THE WORTHY pre-hype campaign totally worked against them. If I hadn’t heard the term, it might have seemed interesting, but when it gets dropped, all I could think was . . . And roll the $4 tie-ins! But wait, just now remembering that maybe they’re doing that one as a free webcomic? Which is kind of a crazy move. Oh, well. Cautiously optimistic about this one. Wasn’t crazy about the first issue of FINAL CRISIS, either. And still think Bendis’s first issue of SECRET INVASION is the most perfectly constructed first issue of a Big Event of all time. Both first impressions could not have more radically reversed themselves, so here’s hoping.
BRIGHTEST DAY #23—Okay, this one got spoiled for me, but the turn of the page still took my breath away just a bit. Reis has been destroying this thing. Can’t believe I’m actually feeling anticipation for a monthly AQUAMAN. It’s a crazy world.
THE BOYS #53—This arc’s leaving me a bit cold. Mainly because this book was just shredding through the 40s. I get that Ennis doesn’t groove on superheroes and delights in crafting absurd and violent fates to befall them, but need a little bit more for my $3.99 every month. This one’s starting to feel padded out.
UNCANNY X-MEN #534.1—This was a pretty solid Fractionless debut for Gillen. Didn’t blow my socks off, but the guy clearly knows what he’s doing and is going to steer us in some interesting directions. Wish we could have gotten through all this Magneto business without bringing up Morrison’s run, because that reset they pulled takes me right out of it.
Complaint Dept: Didn’t care for one word of Namor’s dialogue. And can’t believe we’re still alternating between the Dodsons and Land coming up. Man.
****
BEST OF WEEK: NONPLAYER #1—A stunning professional debut. I guess this Nate Simpson fellow did every single thing on this book? Gorgeous. Breathtaking. What every book should hope to be. Can’t decide if I’m more blown away by the color palette or the pencils. Or even the character design. These people are beautiful. I don't know, I could do a thousand words on just the art. Really really clean. Detailed backgrounds. The faces remind me of Art Adams or lately McKelvie. And yeah, those color tones definitely have a Matt Wilson PHONOGRAM thing going on. The backgrounds recall Moebius with an attention to detail that's only barely ramped down from Geof Darrow. In the healthiest of ways. But the parsing diminishes the effect, the first few times through, you're just awash in these pages. I hope Simpson's been working on this series for like the last ten years, otherwise #2 might not be out until Halloween. I’ll be happy to wait, though. Image has been tearing it up with debuts lately, but this one sets the bar almost impossibly high. With DAYTRIPPER, JOE THE BARBARIAN, and S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 1 in the can, it's wonderful to have a mini-series of this caliber to long for.
****
RETRO!: Set the Wayback Machine for 7 days, friends! Since it was a light week and I couldn’t find any shelf copies of ORC-STAIN, I picked up a couple of books I’d read about that sounded too darn interesting to pass up.
BUTCHER BAKER: THE RIGHTEOUS MAKER #1—Greg Burgas’s review sold me on giving this one a look. The problem is, the same review reveals most of what’s so insane about this issue. No dig on Burgas, the back end just didn’t maintain the totally fucking nuts vibe of the front end. Not counting the backmatter, my man was snorting some uncut Lester Bangs when that thing got slammed out. This reads as Joe Casey channeling Ennis. Which is well and good. I can get behind the sentiment expressed in the backmatter, but I’m not sure that it’s actualized within these pages. At least, not yet. Interesting to turn around and read that Casey’s doing much ballyhooed villain work for Marvel. Is #2 out next week, maybe? If it’s a light week, I’ll give it a shot.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #657—Dan Slott and a tag-team of artists absolutely crush it here. So much heart in this one. If Parker and the Fantastic Three sitting around the kitchen table feeling sad about the loss of their friend and having various entertaining flashbacks drawn in styles reflecting the various periods in which they take place, all of which focus on the fraternal relationship between Peter and the deceased, sounds at all appealing, then pick this one up, posthaste.
BRIGHTEST DAY #23—Okay, this one got spoiled for me, but the turn of the page still took my breath away just a bit. Reis has been destroying this thing. Can’t believe I’m actually feeling anticipation for a monthly AQUAMAN. It’s a crazy world.
THE BOYS #53—This arc’s leaving me a bit cold. Mainly because this book was just shredding through the 40s. I get that Ennis doesn’t groove on superheroes and delights in crafting absurd and violent fates to befall them, but need a little bit more for my $3.99 every month. This one’s starting to feel padded out.
UNCANNY X-MEN #534.1—This was a pretty solid Fractionless debut for Gillen. Didn’t blow my socks off, but the guy clearly knows what he’s doing and is going to steer us in some interesting directions. Wish we could have gotten through all this Magneto business without bringing up Morrison’s run, because that reset they pulled takes me right out of it.
Complaint Dept: Didn’t care for one word of Namor’s dialogue. And can’t believe we’re still alternating between the Dodsons and Land coming up. Man.
****
BEST OF WEEK: NONPLAYER #1—A stunning professional debut. I guess this Nate Simpson fellow did every single thing on this book? Gorgeous. Breathtaking. What every book should hope to be. Can’t decide if I’m more blown away by the color palette or the pencils. Or even the character design. These people are beautiful. I don't know, I could do a thousand words on just the art. Really really clean. Detailed backgrounds. The faces remind me of Art Adams or lately McKelvie. And yeah, those color tones definitely have a Matt Wilson PHONOGRAM thing going on. The backgrounds recall Moebius with an attention to detail that's only barely ramped down from Geof Darrow. In the healthiest of ways. But the parsing diminishes the effect, the first few times through, you're just awash in these pages. I hope Simpson's been working on this series for like the last ten years, otherwise #2 might not be out until Halloween. I’ll be happy to wait, though. Image has been tearing it up with debuts lately, but this one sets the bar almost impossibly high. With DAYTRIPPER, JOE THE BARBARIAN, and S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 1 in the can, it's wonderful to have a mini-series of this caliber to long for.****
RETRO!: Set the Wayback Machine for 7 days, friends! Since it was a light week and I couldn’t find any shelf copies of ORC-STAIN, I picked up a couple of books I’d read about that sounded too darn interesting to pass up.
BUTCHER BAKER: THE RIGHTEOUS MAKER #1—Greg Burgas’s review sold me on giving this one a look. The problem is, the same review reveals most of what’s so insane about this issue. No dig on Burgas, the back end just didn’t maintain the totally fucking nuts vibe of the front end. Not counting the backmatter, my man was snorting some uncut Lester Bangs when that thing got slammed out. This reads as Joe Casey channeling Ennis. Which is well and good. I can get behind the sentiment expressed in the backmatter, but I’m not sure that it’s actualized within these pages. At least, not yet. Interesting to turn around and read that Casey’s doing much ballyhooed villain work for Marvel. Is #2 out next week, maybe? If it’s a light week, I’ll give it a shot.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #657—Dan Slott and a tag-team of artists absolutely crush it here. So much heart in this one. If Parker and the Fantastic Three sitting around the kitchen table feeling sad about the loss of their friend and having various entertaining flashbacks drawn in styles reflecting the various periods in which they take place, all of which focus on the fraternal relationship between Peter and the deceased, sounds at all appealing, then pick this one up, posthaste.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
3/30/11
AVENGERS #11—Bendis and company slam down on the gas with this one, delivering seventeen splash pages in a row before breaking the flow for a three-panel page and a sixteen panel page of head shots before hitting us with three more splashes to take us out. This might not sound that good on paper, and I did take Finch to task for delivering far less splashes last week, but the effect here is one of steadily rising tension. I mean, don’t worry, there’s still a bit of talking going on, here. Even best, the Watcher narrates in purple prose captions, something I now can’t believe nobody thought of during Claremont’s classic run on UNCANNY. I suspect this arc will come to an end next month, just because after that last page, there’s really not that much further you can take this one. Bendis’s greatest feat on this one, though, is almost making the Red Hulk seem like a character for a couple of pages. Great big dumb summer blockbuster fun, and I mean that in the best way possible.
THOR #621—All right, yeah, those first three months were kind of a slow start, but this one is dials-in-the-red batshit from page one. Ferry has been turning in beauty from the beginning, but he really really outdoes himself here. And Matt Hollingsworth knocks the lights out on the coloring, just unbelievable tones. Very much looking forward to whatever Fraction and crew have in store this year. See you next month with Gillen and Braithwaite and the original classic moniker.
SECRET AVENGERS #11—Solid work. Think I’ll probably take off with Brubaker, though. The principle of them just charging an extra dollar for this because we’ll pay it drives me bananas in a way it doesn’t up there on THOR. I don’t know why.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #616—But then, man, this has to be the value buy of the week. For one measly extra dollar, you get 30 pages of Brubaker doled out across the first part of the next arc and a story about why we need Cap, not to mention a one page origin beautifully rendered by chronic sequential page dodger and cover artist Travis Charest. Then, there’s an excellent 14-page story by Chaykin, followed by three more 12-pagers, written and drawn mainly by people who I haven’t heard of, all of which are really excellent and diverse takes on the old stars and stripes. This is one of the better anniversary issues in recent memory, certainly standing head and shoulders next to the excellent AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600.
INCOGNITO: BAD INFLUENCES #5—When it rains Brubaker, it pours. Must be that Portland weather. Events come spiraling to a head as Zack Overkill finds secret redemption that no one will even consider for a second as legitimate. These guys are just masters of the craft, man. Nobody colors raygun blasts like Val Staples. Extraordinary. Then, of course, Jess Nevins turns up at the end to blow everyone out of the water with yet another eye-opening essay, this time on the pulp supervillain. I keep meaning to dive back into his LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN annotations but am afraid that I wouldn’t resurface.
KICK-ASS 2 #2—A few months later, Romita’s managed to crank another one of these out alongside his flagship gig, and it maintains the momentum from last issue just fine, picking right up with the league of fools that Dave has inspired. But only one page of Hit-Girl! That will not stand, she was practically the lead last issue. Hope we don’t have to wait another six months for #3, but will be glad to get it whenever it shows up.
GIANT-SIZE JIMMY OLSEN #1—First of all, when I pulled out the last little run of ACTIONs in which the first 40 pages of this story was serialized, I stumbled upon #892, the month before Spencer and Silva got going. And what was the feature? SUPERBOY by Lemire and Gallo. No big deal, I thought this was the preview of #1 that sold me on the series originally, but no! It’s one of those in medias res (or, really, in finis res, the arc looks to be just about over) things, 10 pages of super action go time that we haven’t even made it up to yet by #5! It kind of blew my mind to reread something I first hit seven months ago, but now with all this built-in affection for the team and story. And it still takes place in our future! Huge bonus. So yeah, still loving SUPERBOY. Which didn’t come out this week.
What we have right here is basically a spineless trade of JIMMY OLSEN back-up features, the first four of which already ran in ACTION COMICS #893-6. It’s somewhat unfortunate for the folks who actually showed up to support this in its original format, because we paid an extra dollar those months for 10 pages of this per pop. But then, to get the final three parts, we’ve got to throw down another $6 for the entire thing, only thirty pages of which are new to us. You know what, though, I don’t care, because this story is so much fun, it short-circuits petty economical concerns. Didn’t even occur to me until after the fact. Nick Spencer gives Jimmy more heart and characterization than I can about ever remember him having, RB Silva knocks it out on the sequentials, and those last couple of pages crank it so far up that the effect is pretty much breathtaking. Fine fine work, all around. A good-looking Amanda Conner cover tops off a very enjoyable self-contained seventy pages that you can recommend to anyone who wants intelligent but fun character-driven shenanigans starring Jimmy Olsen and, apparently, Allison Mack.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #13—Rafael Albuquerque returns and brings the thunder with him. And Snyder cranks it way up, as well. This book has never been anything less than great, but they really do take it up to a new level with this one. And barely anything’s happened yet! I’ve got to say, Snyder’s going to have to figure out an inversion or permutation of the trick of spending the entire first issue of a new arc setting up one situation only to have his title character show up on the last page for big Oh Noes! Even though, yeah, he still got me again this time. But one of these months, I’m going to remember and be looking for it!
DETECTIVE COMICS #875—No sign of Jock or Batman (well, mostly), but this is probably the best of Snyder’s short run yet. This one’s mainly a flashback depicting how little James, Jr. first displayed signs of the sociopath he would become. Never thought about it before now, but it makes perfect sense that the little baby that Bruce saves sans cowl at the end of YEAR ONE is still marked by the experience, tainted. Come to think of it, Gordon is standing on a bridge at the top of the issue. Do you think?!?!? Francesco Francavilla comes back with his best work yet, very reminiscent of Mazzucchelli’s lines in that all-time classic. This is a really strong done-in-one, folks.
And the L O S T nut in me can’t help noting that the dialogue in the first panel of page eight has a fifteen and not one but two eights in it, opposite an ad for ACTION COMICS #900, a monster anniversary issue whose lowest-billed writer is a guy named Damon Lindelof. And maybe that makes me crazy, but check this issue’s title.
ACTION COMICS #899—Pretty serious shit, right here. Jesus Merino drops in for amazing fill-in work to help Cornell ramp up for the home stretch next month. This one is a doozy. My favorite part is not the fanboy bait resolution to the Luthor/Braniac fight, but how Luthor, right before it gets going with Braniac, just lobs into the conversation the fact that he’s arranged for Superman to be caught in the same spacetime trap as his disciples. Almost positive that we’ve had no mention of the big guy whatsoever up until now, and that’s such a cool trick, subverting our assumptions. Just because this arc launched the same month as that JMS malarkey, I and I think most folks assumed that this ultimate Luthor story was running concurrent to Kal walking his way through what we might refer to as ANTI-STAR SUPERMAN, but no! This has nothing to do with that and Superman’s been maneuvered off-panel this entire time by the brilliant machinations of the star of our show. I heard Pete Woods is bailing out after next month, but I hope Merino or some other A-list talent holds the fort with Cornell for a long time to come, can’t imagine how wonderful mind-blowing it could get if this was a comic book starring, you know, Superman. Really really looking forward to next month.
BEST OF WEEK is about too close to call, folks! I could go to AVENGERS for fun, CAP for value and uniform excellence from many creative teams, really, either one of Snyder’s, or ACTION, or, I don’t know, those 70 pages of JIMMY OLSEN are really something, particularly if you happened to be reading them for the first time. Mm, yeah, if I pretend I hadn’t already gotten on board and then for some reason felt like gambling $6 on Olsen, yeah, that might be the one. It would be quite a lot to take in one blast.
THOR #621—All right, yeah, those first three months were kind of a slow start, but this one is dials-in-the-red batshit from page one. Ferry has been turning in beauty from the beginning, but he really really outdoes himself here. And Matt Hollingsworth knocks the lights out on the coloring, just unbelievable tones. Very much looking forward to whatever Fraction and crew have in store this year. See you next month with Gillen and Braithwaite and the original classic moniker.
SECRET AVENGERS #11—Solid work. Think I’ll probably take off with Brubaker, though. The principle of them just charging an extra dollar for this because we’ll pay it drives me bananas in a way it doesn’t up there on THOR. I don’t know why.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #616—But then, man, this has to be the value buy of the week. For one measly extra dollar, you get 30 pages of Brubaker doled out across the first part of the next arc and a story about why we need Cap, not to mention a one page origin beautifully rendered by chronic sequential page dodger and cover artist Travis Charest. Then, there’s an excellent 14-page story by Chaykin, followed by three more 12-pagers, written and drawn mainly by people who I haven’t heard of, all of which are really excellent and diverse takes on the old stars and stripes. This is one of the better anniversary issues in recent memory, certainly standing head and shoulders next to the excellent AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600.
INCOGNITO: BAD INFLUENCES #5—When it rains Brubaker, it pours. Must be that Portland weather. Events come spiraling to a head as Zack Overkill finds secret redemption that no one will even consider for a second as legitimate. These guys are just masters of the craft, man. Nobody colors raygun blasts like Val Staples. Extraordinary. Then, of course, Jess Nevins turns up at the end to blow everyone out of the water with yet another eye-opening essay, this time on the pulp supervillain. I keep meaning to dive back into his LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN annotations but am afraid that I wouldn’t resurface.
KICK-ASS 2 #2—A few months later, Romita’s managed to crank another one of these out alongside his flagship gig, and it maintains the momentum from last issue just fine, picking right up with the league of fools that Dave has inspired. But only one page of Hit-Girl! That will not stand, she was practically the lead last issue. Hope we don’t have to wait another six months for #3, but will be glad to get it whenever it shows up.
GIANT-SIZE JIMMY OLSEN #1—First of all, when I pulled out the last little run of ACTIONs in which the first 40 pages of this story was serialized, I stumbled upon #892, the month before Spencer and Silva got going. And what was the feature? SUPERBOY by Lemire and Gallo. No big deal, I thought this was the preview of #1 that sold me on the series originally, but no! It’s one of those in medias res (or, really, in finis res, the arc looks to be just about over) things, 10 pages of super action go time that we haven’t even made it up to yet by #5! It kind of blew my mind to reread something I first hit seven months ago, but now with all this built-in affection for the team and story. And it still takes place in our future! Huge bonus. So yeah, still loving SUPERBOY. Which didn’t come out this week.
What we have right here is basically a spineless trade of JIMMY OLSEN back-up features, the first four of which already ran in ACTION COMICS #893-6. It’s somewhat unfortunate for the folks who actually showed up to support this in its original format, because we paid an extra dollar those months for 10 pages of this per pop. But then, to get the final three parts, we’ve got to throw down another $6 for the entire thing, only thirty pages of which are new to us. You know what, though, I don’t care, because this story is so much fun, it short-circuits petty economical concerns. Didn’t even occur to me until after the fact. Nick Spencer gives Jimmy more heart and characterization than I can about ever remember him having, RB Silva knocks it out on the sequentials, and those last couple of pages crank it so far up that the effect is pretty much breathtaking. Fine fine work, all around. A good-looking Amanda Conner cover tops off a very enjoyable self-contained seventy pages that you can recommend to anyone who wants intelligent but fun character-driven shenanigans starring Jimmy Olsen and, apparently, Allison Mack.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #13—Rafael Albuquerque returns and brings the thunder with him. And Snyder cranks it way up, as well. This book has never been anything less than great, but they really do take it up to a new level with this one. And barely anything’s happened yet! I’ve got to say, Snyder’s going to have to figure out an inversion or permutation of the trick of spending the entire first issue of a new arc setting up one situation only to have his title character show up on the last page for big Oh Noes! Even though, yeah, he still got me again this time. But one of these months, I’m going to remember and be looking for it!
DETECTIVE COMICS #875—No sign of Jock or Batman (well, mostly), but this is probably the best of Snyder’s short run yet. This one’s mainly a flashback depicting how little James, Jr. first displayed signs of the sociopath he would become. Never thought about it before now, but it makes perfect sense that the little baby that Bruce saves sans cowl at the end of YEAR ONE is still marked by the experience, tainted. Come to think of it, Gordon is standing on a bridge at the top of the issue. Do you think?!?!? Francesco Francavilla comes back with his best work yet, very reminiscent of Mazzucchelli’s lines in that all-time classic. This is a really strong done-in-one, folks.
And the L O S T nut in me can’t help noting that the dialogue in the first panel of page eight has a fifteen and not one but two eights in it, opposite an ad for ACTION COMICS #900, a monster anniversary issue whose lowest-billed writer is a guy named Damon Lindelof. And maybe that makes me crazy, but check this issue’s title.
ACTION COMICS #899—Pretty serious shit, right here. Jesus Merino drops in for amazing fill-in work to help Cornell ramp up for the home stretch next month. This one is a doozy. My favorite part is not the fanboy bait resolution to the Luthor/Braniac fight, but how Luthor, right before it gets going with Braniac, just lobs into the conversation the fact that he’s arranged for Superman to be caught in the same spacetime trap as his disciples. Almost positive that we’ve had no mention of the big guy whatsoever up until now, and that’s such a cool trick, subverting our assumptions. Just because this arc launched the same month as that JMS malarkey, I and I think most folks assumed that this ultimate Luthor story was running concurrent to Kal walking his way through what we might refer to as ANTI-STAR SUPERMAN, but no! This has nothing to do with that and Superman’s been maneuvered off-panel this entire time by the brilliant machinations of the star of our show. I heard Pete Woods is bailing out after next month, but I hope Merino or some other A-list talent holds the fort with Cornell for a long time to come, can’t imagine how wonderful mind-blowing it could get if this was a comic book starring, you know, Superman. Really really looking forward to next month.
BEST OF WEEK is about too close to call, folks! I could go to AVENGERS for fun, CAP for value and uniform excellence from many creative teams, really, either one of Snyder’s, or ACTION, or, I don’t know, those 70 pages of JIMMY OLSEN are really something, particularly if you happened to be reading them for the first time. Mm, yeah, if I pretend I hadn’t already gotten on board and then for some reason felt like gambling $6 on Olsen, yeah, that might be the one. It would be quite a lot to take in one blast.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
3/23/11
FF #1—Hickman’s run on FANTASTIC FOUR has been one of my favorite things coming out since the very first page, and he and Epting do not let us down over here with their sideways slide. This issue is, of course, a great jumping-on point for anyone who hasn’t been worshipping in the aisles, doling out a fair share of set-up that’s a joy to read in and of itself. I’m already loving the Parker dynamic. Nice touch giving all four members a single line of dialogue on their first page in action, you can’t fault the symmetry, there. Bringing the prophet into the fold is another bold stroke that will certainly lead to interesting developments as we head on down the road. Really really hope that they don’t reverse this and that I actually get to buy #12 of this title with Johnny still toast and no reversion to the old numbering. Great work, all around. I’m thrilled to be a part of tomorrow.
BATMAN INCORPORATED #4—This Chris Burnham is a shredder! Never heard of him before they announced his exclusive this week, but I’m a huge fan. He seems to be coming from the Pope/Grampa neck of the woods by way of Quitely. Hope he just stays on this one forever. Since we’re only two weeks since last issue and what with Batwoman and a different art team, I spent the first five pages thinking this was just a new Part One and we’d get back to Batman and El Gaucho next month. Which would have been kind of cool, though I’m sure the Internets would have howled like starving babies. But no, we just fold last month in to bookend a flashback tale of Batman romancing and losing Batwoman. Loved the retro art for that sequence. Was thinking those three horizontal panels of Robin pouting about the ubiquitousness of masks was one of the greatest things, and then that last panel of the page just blew the doors off. Too much fun with this one.
THE DARK KNIGHT #2—Okay, so it was a huge disservice to this set of splashes to read them right after the Morrison. Even so, this one felt just a bit slight. And that’s not even taking into account the rather significant gap since the first issue. The art is rocking, in that Jim-Lee-is-king-of-1991 way that Finch has totally mastered, but there’s not quite enough narrative to hang it on. I mean, what happens in this book is: Batman chases Penguin, breaks three of his limbs, Croc smashes Batman’s face into a wall, a little girl jacks the Batmobile, Jason Blood turns into Etrigan, Batman wakes up in a deathtrap, and Ragman comes out of nowhere to burn the last two pages. Staged and drawn real well. Not bad, just not a whole lot to sink your teeth into for the next two or three months.
UNCANNY X-MEN #534—And so Matt Fraction takes a bow after three years of scripting the merry mutants’ flagship. Even though this is as much as I’ve enjoyed this book since the original Claremont run, I still feel just a bit let down. Which is maybe a dick thing to say, but Fraction has done such great work over on IRON MAN with no signs of letting up whatsoever, and he’s killing it over on THOR, and let’s not get me started on CASANOVA. And I just didn’t catch fire with this run the way I wanted to. It always felt like it was building toward something, some capstone that never arrived. I wish they all could have been as good as #512, which was thunder. Alas. Goodbye, Fraction. Crush the fear.
Of course, Gillen probably did most of the actual scripting on this one, anyway. And I’m interested to see where he takes it, particularly bringing the Dodsons back on art. With him on this title and over on GENERATION HOPE, we’ve all of a sudden got that old Claremont dynamic of one dude chronicling the exploits of the senior and junior team. Except, ah, there are like thirty other mutant monthlies coming out. But still!
OSBORN #4—I’ve been enjoying this one, but the ladies cranked it way WAY up for the penultimate ride. I haven’t read but a fraction of his total appearances (pun really really not intended, but uncut in pursuit of some vague infinitely receding notion of journalistic integrity), but Kelly Sue puts the best words in Norman’s mouth that I’ve ever read, manages to capture his charisma, egotism, and instability in a single speech that gives St. Crispin’s Day a fair run for its money. Strong, strong material. Emma Rios and Jose Villarrubia continue to dominate. And just a hell of a letters page, too. A very, very enjoyable read.
CAPTAIN AMEIRCA #615.1—Brubaker pulls the trick of landing the initiative’s goal of bringing in new readers while also pushing the overall narrative forward in a very interesting way for those of us who’ve been around for the past six years. And the Breitweisers show up with a much looser style than what we saw a while back in THEATER OF WAR. All of this capped off by a very iconic cover from Daniel Acuna, and this one’s ready to move. Shouldn’t it have maybe come out in July, though?
THOR #620.1—Well, when I got home and realized that Fraction and Ferry have nothing to do with this, I was a bit pissed. It’s one thing to pump these extra issues out in the middle of an arc and have them just be standalones, like they just did with Remender’s UNCANNY X-FORCE or over on DEADPOOL. I don’t even mind changing artists, so that the regular guy or gal can maintain the monthly schedule. But I really feel like at least the writer needs to be a part of this self-proclaimed jumping-on point. I mean, is this team going to be putting out any more THOR books? This is, for all intents and purposes a fill-in issue that fills in a non-existent gap between #620 and #621. Ridiculous.
However. Casting the principle of the thing aside, is this a good comic book? No. It’s a GREAT comic book. Mark Brooks’s always superior draftsmanship has never looked better, and Abnett/Lanning show that they’re just as adept at juggling the Marvel Norse pantheon and goofy old B-villains as they have been at making the cosmic spectrum of the Marvel Universe relevant and engaging. Just a hell of an entertaining done-in-one. I’m still all gaga over Burnham across the street, but this is definitely some of the very best art this week. And it doesn’t hurt to have Sonia Oback step out on her man and color somebody else’s pages, she’s top drawer.
THE NEW YORK FIVE #3—Wood and Kelly are just on fire, here. What an alchemy between these guys. No complaints about the lettering, but you almost wish Jared K. Fletcher would have sat this one out and let Wood do it, just because that’s the only part of this that those two guys aren’t responsible for. For three American dollars, you get no ads and 32 pages of the best black and white art you’re going to see this month and maybe this entire year. And it’s all going down for our freshman quartet, some pretty serious business here, all filtered through what seems to be Wood’s most autobiographical authorial voice to date. That man loves his city. Really, really strong, can’t wait to see how it all shakes out next month. Ryan Kelly is just freaking me out, what a force. Dude should be getting the big money gigs.
GREEN LANTERN #64—I’m starting to run out of gas on this one, kind of an event fatigue thing. Nothing an issue of Hal and Ollie getting drunk and talking shit about Clark and Bruce wouldn’t clear up, but I feel like we’ve been running around the universe for like fifty issues now. Shouldn’t that ring be out of juice by now?
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #11—I’ve never heard of Daniel HBD either, but I love its name. I had a model like that, once. More great fill-in work. What a Legion Leader poll! Just beyond cool that they did that, and what a tally in the letters column. Levitz betrays no sign of flagging, is just getting his wind up.
FABLES #103—This is charging hard to trump all that’s come before as my favorite arc of the title. Wonderful, wonderful. The parallel plots of Super Team team-tup versus Mister Dark and the North Wind vs. his zephyr grandson are just about too much to handle. The trade-waiters are going to need diapers to read this thing in one sitting, I suspect. Strong.
****
BEST OF WEEK: NEONOMICON #4—Horrifying and executed to perfection. If this is the last page of sequentials that we ever get from Moore, it turns out to be really much more of a perfect way to go out than I ever saw coming, this whole time. Career best from Burrows. And probably Avatar, as well. Read it once by candlelight and then once with the Edisons on. Man, just that first page alone. A major work.
(reading this and finding out that SYM-BIONIC TITAN got cancelled, just a few hours apart, all of a sudden it’s the end of an era again. I hate it when that happens.)
BATMAN INCORPORATED #4—This Chris Burnham is a shredder! Never heard of him before they announced his exclusive this week, but I’m a huge fan. He seems to be coming from the Pope/Grampa neck of the woods by way of Quitely. Hope he just stays on this one forever. Since we’re only two weeks since last issue and what with Batwoman and a different art team, I spent the first five pages thinking this was just a new Part One and we’d get back to Batman and El Gaucho next month. Which would have been kind of cool, though I’m sure the Internets would have howled like starving babies. But no, we just fold last month in to bookend a flashback tale of Batman romancing and losing Batwoman. Loved the retro art for that sequence. Was thinking those three horizontal panels of Robin pouting about the ubiquitousness of masks was one of the greatest things, and then that last panel of the page just blew the doors off. Too much fun with this one.
THE DARK KNIGHT #2—Okay, so it was a huge disservice to this set of splashes to read them right after the Morrison. Even so, this one felt just a bit slight. And that’s not even taking into account the rather significant gap since the first issue. The art is rocking, in that Jim-Lee-is-king-of-1991 way that Finch has totally mastered, but there’s not quite enough narrative to hang it on. I mean, what happens in this book is: Batman chases Penguin, breaks three of his limbs, Croc smashes Batman’s face into a wall, a little girl jacks the Batmobile, Jason Blood turns into Etrigan, Batman wakes up in a deathtrap, and Ragman comes out of nowhere to burn the last two pages. Staged and drawn real well. Not bad, just not a whole lot to sink your teeth into for the next two or three months.
UNCANNY X-MEN #534—And so Matt Fraction takes a bow after three years of scripting the merry mutants’ flagship. Even though this is as much as I’ve enjoyed this book since the original Claremont run, I still feel just a bit let down. Which is maybe a dick thing to say, but Fraction has done such great work over on IRON MAN with no signs of letting up whatsoever, and he’s killing it over on THOR, and let’s not get me started on CASANOVA. And I just didn’t catch fire with this run the way I wanted to. It always felt like it was building toward something, some capstone that never arrived. I wish they all could have been as good as #512, which was thunder. Alas. Goodbye, Fraction. Crush the fear.
Of course, Gillen probably did most of the actual scripting on this one, anyway. And I’m interested to see where he takes it, particularly bringing the Dodsons back on art. With him on this title and over on GENERATION HOPE, we’ve all of a sudden got that old Claremont dynamic of one dude chronicling the exploits of the senior and junior team. Except, ah, there are like thirty other mutant monthlies coming out. But still!
OSBORN #4—I’ve been enjoying this one, but the ladies cranked it way WAY up for the penultimate ride. I haven’t read but a fraction of his total appearances (pun really really not intended, but uncut in pursuit of some vague infinitely receding notion of journalistic integrity), but Kelly Sue puts the best words in Norman’s mouth that I’ve ever read, manages to capture his charisma, egotism, and instability in a single speech that gives St. Crispin’s Day a fair run for its money. Strong, strong material. Emma Rios and Jose Villarrubia continue to dominate. And just a hell of a letters page, too. A very, very enjoyable read.
CAPTAIN AMEIRCA #615.1—Brubaker pulls the trick of landing the initiative’s goal of bringing in new readers while also pushing the overall narrative forward in a very interesting way for those of us who’ve been around for the past six years. And the Breitweisers show up with a much looser style than what we saw a while back in THEATER OF WAR. All of this capped off by a very iconic cover from Daniel Acuna, and this one’s ready to move. Shouldn’t it have maybe come out in July, though?
THOR #620.1—Well, when I got home and realized that Fraction and Ferry have nothing to do with this, I was a bit pissed. It’s one thing to pump these extra issues out in the middle of an arc and have them just be standalones, like they just did with Remender’s UNCANNY X-FORCE or over on DEADPOOL. I don’t even mind changing artists, so that the regular guy or gal can maintain the monthly schedule. But I really feel like at least the writer needs to be a part of this self-proclaimed jumping-on point. I mean, is this team going to be putting out any more THOR books? This is, for all intents and purposes a fill-in issue that fills in a non-existent gap between #620 and #621. Ridiculous.
However. Casting the principle of the thing aside, is this a good comic book? No. It’s a GREAT comic book. Mark Brooks’s always superior draftsmanship has never looked better, and Abnett/Lanning show that they’re just as adept at juggling the Marvel Norse pantheon and goofy old B-villains as they have been at making the cosmic spectrum of the Marvel Universe relevant and engaging. Just a hell of an entertaining done-in-one. I’m still all gaga over Burnham across the street, but this is definitely some of the very best art this week. And it doesn’t hurt to have Sonia Oback step out on her man and color somebody else’s pages, she’s top drawer.
THE NEW YORK FIVE #3—Wood and Kelly are just on fire, here. What an alchemy between these guys. No complaints about the lettering, but you almost wish Jared K. Fletcher would have sat this one out and let Wood do it, just because that’s the only part of this that those two guys aren’t responsible for. For three American dollars, you get no ads and 32 pages of the best black and white art you’re going to see this month and maybe this entire year. And it’s all going down for our freshman quartet, some pretty serious business here, all filtered through what seems to be Wood’s most autobiographical authorial voice to date. That man loves his city. Really, really strong, can’t wait to see how it all shakes out next month. Ryan Kelly is just freaking me out, what a force. Dude should be getting the big money gigs.
GREEN LANTERN #64—I’m starting to run out of gas on this one, kind of an event fatigue thing. Nothing an issue of Hal and Ollie getting drunk and talking shit about Clark and Bruce wouldn’t clear up, but I feel like we’ve been running around the universe for like fifty issues now. Shouldn’t that ring be out of juice by now?
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #11—I’ve never heard of Daniel HBD either, but I love its name. I had a model like that, once. More great fill-in work. What a Legion Leader poll! Just beyond cool that they did that, and what a tally in the letters column. Levitz betrays no sign of flagging, is just getting his wind up.
FABLES #103—This is charging hard to trump all that’s come before as my favorite arc of the title. Wonderful, wonderful. The parallel plots of Super Team team-tup versus Mister Dark and the North Wind vs. his zephyr grandson are just about too much to handle. The trade-waiters are going to need diapers to read this thing in one sitting, I suspect. Strong.
****
BEST OF WEEK: NEONOMICON #4—Horrifying and executed to perfection. If this is the last page of sequentials that we ever get from Moore, it turns out to be really much more of a perfect way to go out than I ever saw coming, this whole time. Career best from Burrows. And probably Avatar, as well. Read it once by candlelight and then once with the Edisons on. Man, just that first page alone. A major work.
(reading this and finding out that SYM-BIONIC TITAN got cancelled, just a few hours apart, all of a sudden it’s the end of an era again. I hate it when that happens.)
Thursday, March 17, 2011
3/16/11
TINY TITANS #38—I keep meaning to bring this one up here, but I’m not reading it with the rest of these late at night and it keeps going by the wayside. This book is gold! Of course, it really really helps if you’ve got a young kid who loves superheroes and wants a dose of Robin and Superboy sans death by Joker crowbar or heat-vision rage. We’ve been picking these up since #35 was on the rack and snagging back issues on the off weeks.
Basically, this is a riff on the Titans by way of Schultz or Watterson, not unlike those loveable scamps the Lil’ Endless. The hilarity ensues when there are knowing winks to mainstream continuity for the parents. Coolest two moments that jump immediately to mind: in the Kalibak issue (oh, I forgot the funniest part of this, they’re all enrolled at Sidekick City Elementary, where Slade Wilson is the principal and Darkseid is the lunch lady. Yes.), a boom tube opens up to transport Lil’ Barda back from Apokolips and the sound effects are CRACKLE CRACKLE SPARKLE KIRBY. That was the first issue we ever read #32 and, brother, I was sold. Second best bit is guest-written by Geoff Johns and features the return of Superboy in #25, I guess around the time he returned to the main DCU as well. He flies up and they’re like, “Connor, where you been?” and he just says, “Oh . . . I was away for a while. But now I’m back!” And that’s it! The wife, not a habitual follower of Grand Corporate Narratives or Big Events just cannot understand that the reason this is still so funny after two hundred times is that the real reason he went away is this insane thread of Didio wanting to off Dick Grayson in INFINITE CRISIS but having Johns swerve at the last minute when the threatened fan boycott became too fearsome a thing to ignore and so poor Connor had to die this gruesome death in a mini-series known for over the top takedowns, yes, still looking at you, Pantha’s arm (or was it Wildebeest’s head? Or both?), and then the left field convoluted way that Johns brought him back in the FC: LEGION mini that I still never really wrapped my brain around, I mean, he was dead and then he wasn’t, it didn’t matter if he laid there for a millennium, I think? but in the end I just shrugged it off and said welcome back, plus all this not even counting the years of mourning and Tim kissing Cassie, just the whole deal compressed into “I was away for a while. But now I’m back!” such an elegant summation. Pull up a chair at the breakfast table, kid, there is a bowl of Aqua-Ohs with your name on it.
Wow, haven’t even talked about this issue. There’s an Aquacow in it. That’s all you need to know. It is a precious thing, and you need it in your life.
FEAR ITSELF: THE BOOK OF THE SKULL—Well, any diehard who’s been hanging with Brubaker since he first took out the Red Skull in one of the better debut issues of the last decade and who was planning on giving this Big Event a miss would probably do well to at least gamble four bones on this badboy, as it turns out to pretty much be #67 of Bru’s run, the bulk of which is a flashback to some rocking Dubba Dubba Two Invaders action that apparently sets the stage for this year’s line-wide crossover. And, you know, it’s a romp. Scot Eaton turns in dynamic work that’s cranked up from what I remember of him, those American heroes are thick. I enjoyed this and found the reveal to be eyebrow-raising enough to crank up my expectations for Fraction/Immonen/Martin’s upcoming core title that much more.
THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #502—This creative team juggernaut just rolls right on. Pepper does the heavier lifting on the action front while Tony and Otto talk it out for the most part, though the latter is probably more compelling, just because the characterization through dialogue is so spot-on. Fraction’s really locking into the rhythms now, every beat falling just where it ought to. I bitch about $4 cover prices a lot, but when it’s this consistently good, I’ll keep showing up every month.
GENERATION HOPE #5—Team Phonogram! With Matt Wilson’s gorgeous hues even along for the ride. Would that he and McKelvie could always be aboard. The only drawback of this issue was that it really just hammered home how much I miss these guys’ initial collaboration. This was, I guess, Gillen’s first baseball issue. Not that they actually played their equivalent, a first-person shooter or something, but this was the sit-around-and-rock-some-pinball-characterization issue, mainly Hope bouncing off the elder crew in interesting ways that can’t usually happen when they’re fighting the mutant menace of the month. This book remains a strong entry in the merry Marvel tradition of new mutant titles.
X-FACTOR #217—And PAD pulls in the ever-lovin’ mighty mayor of New York City as an engaging guest star/target, and heck if old JJJ isn’t as engaging and relatable as he’s ever been. PAD dials the rabid Spider-hate way back and does his best to make us care about one of our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler’s oldest antagonists. And man, I can’t speak highly enough of the art. Gorgeous work, all around. Then we get just a hell of a double cliffhanger, made much more ominous by the reveal of next issue’s cover. Still doing everything for you that 22 pages ought to be monthly at just $2.99, folks!
MORNING GLORIES #8—So yeah, this arc definitely looks like it’s going to straight up go the L O S T route and have flashbacks about one individual character per issue, revealing information pertaining to events as they unfold. And if you think I just have a disease, tell me that isn’t Hurley at the bottom of Page 12 firing Hunter from Mr. Cluck’s (of course, we all know that Hurley was never manager, he went straight from quitting as fry cook to winning the lottery to buying the entire franchise, but this is clearly an alternate reality, anyway). Anyway, yeah, this is yet another intriguing issue, inching things along while implying a grand plan for the overarching narrative. Will Nick Spencer’s exclusive with Marvel and subsequent corporate work dilute or supercharge the intensity of his work on this title? I’m hoping the latter.
THE UNWRITTEN #23—Well, of course, it shouldn’t be strange that all kinds of madness gets thrown down in #23 of this particular title. Eminently logical and sensible reveal as to what the whale really is, along with being maybe my favorite splash of the entire series thus far. And then we even get a nice little nod to the Savage/Falk THE PRINCESS BRIDE dynamic on that last page. We are all the consumers of story. And this is a really, really good one. Because, not only is it about all of them, but in the end, it’s about us, the ones who perform the alchemy that change the words or words and pictures on a page into so much more.
BRIGHTEST DAY#22—I, ah, thought this was running four more issues after this, so was kind of freaked out that so much was going down. But looks like #24 is it. I bet it’s a pretty big damn finish, this has been the best weekly since 52, with the art even a step up. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes down.
ADVENTURE COMICS #524—No huge bombshells in this issue, just solid characterization from Paul Levitz and top-drawer draftsmanship from Phil Jiminez. Enjoyable, if not particularly flattening. I think I sequenced it wrong.
****
CASANOVA: GULA #3—Took me exactly 1:08 to make it through, though it must be said that I had an omega humdinger of an idea about five pages in that must have taken me out of commission for at least ten or twenty minutes. It is unreal how good this book is! Zephyr’s massacre is even more gorgeous than I remembered, due in no small part to the added tones, I’m sure. It is a shame how it broke down, though, with the doubled-up issues. New readers didn’t have a month off in between #12 and #13 to chew over the absolute carnage that Cass’s sister wreaks. Which is a shame, what with all the reversal that goes down the next issue, now just a few pages later. That’s basically reaching as hard as I can to say anything less than superlative about the glorious eruption that is this book.
I’ve only read #14 the one time. It was one of the best single issue hits of my life, to the point that I have locked myself out of even opening the fucking thing back up, because to do it again, to really do it right, you would have to now be blasting the mix, one song per page, get that shit all synched up right, but to get the list, right, you’d have to open the book up and go through it page by page. But I don’t want to do that, see all those pages again, until everything is just perfect. So up until now, I’ve chicken-egged myself out of the experience altogether. And, and I think I remember the business, the heavy shit, the flip twist reveal that makes one reconsider the entire GULA run in a new light. But I really really want to just grab #14 out of my longbox and rip through it. But haven’t touched the initial run since we got going over here at Marvel, found all these pretty colors. I hope I can wait.
Want to rip my jaw off over the idea of new material, at this point. If I had to go down to one title a month, this would be it.
Basically, this is a riff on the Titans by way of Schultz or Watterson, not unlike those loveable scamps the Lil’ Endless. The hilarity ensues when there are knowing winks to mainstream continuity for the parents. Coolest two moments that jump immediately to mind: in the Kalibak issue (oh, I forgot the funniest part of this, they’re all enrolled at Sidekick City Elementary, where Slade Wilson is the principal and Darkseid is the lunch lady. Yes.), a boom tube opens up to transport Lil’ Barda back from Apokolips and the sound effects are CRACKLE CRACKLE SPARKLE KIRBY. That was the first issue we ever read #32 and, brother, I was sold. Second best bit is guest-written by Geoff Johns and features the return of Superboy in #25, I guess around the time he returned to the main DCU as well. He flies up and they’re like, “Connor, where you been?” and he just says, “Oh . . . I was away for a while. But now I’m back!” And that’s it! The wife, not a habitual follower of Grand Corporate Narratives or Big Events just cannot understand that the reason this is still so funny after two hundred times is that the real reason he went away is this insane thread of Didio wanting to off Dick Grayson in INFINITE CRISIS but having Johns swerve at the last minute when the threatened fan boycott became too fearsome a thing to ignore and so poor Connor had to die this gruesome death in a mini-series known for over the top takedowns, yes, still looking at you, Pantha’s arm (or was it Wildebeest’s head? Or both?), and then the left field convoluted way that Johns brought him back in the FC: LEGION mini that I still never really wrapped my brain around, I mean, he was dead and then he wasn’t, it didn’t matter if he laid there for a millennium, I think? but in the end I just shrugged it off and said welcome back, plus all this not even counting the years of mourning and Tim kissing Cassie, just the whole deal compressed into “I was away for a while. But now I’m back!” such an elegant summation. Pull up a chair at the breakfast table, kid, there is a bowl of Aqua-Ohs with your name on it.
Wow, haven’t even talked about this issue. There’s an Aquacow in it. That’s all you need to know. It is a precious thing, and you need it in your life.
FEAR ITSELF: THE BOOK OF THE SKULL—Well, any diehard who’s been hanging with Brubaker since he first took out the Red Skull in one of the better debut issues of the last decade and who was planning on giving this Big Event a miss would probably do well to at least gamble four bones on this badboy, as it turns out to pretty much be #67 of Bru’s run, the bulk of which is a flashback to some rocking Dubba Dubba Two Invaders action that apparently sets the stage for this year’s line-wide crossover. And, you know, it’s a romp. Scot Eaton turns in dynamic work that’s cranked up from what I remember of him, those American heroes are thick. I enjoyed this and found the reveal to be eyebrow-raising enough to crank up my expectations for Fraction/Immonen/Martin’s upcoming core title that much more.
THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #502—This creative team juggernaut just rolls right on. Pepper does the heavier lifting on the action front while Tony and Otto talk it out for the most part, though the latter is probably more compelling, just because the characterization through dialogue is so spot-on. Fraction’s really locking into the rhythms now, every beat falling just where it ought to. I bitch about $4 cover prices a lot, but when it’s this consistently good, I’ll keep showing up every month.
GENERATION HOPE #5—Team Phonogram! With Matt Wilson’s gorgeous hues even along for the ride. Would that he and McKelvie could always be aboard. The only drawback of this issue was that it really just hammered home how much I miss these guys’ initial collaboration. This was, I guess, Gillen’s first baseball issue. Not that they actually played their equivalent, a first-person shooter or something, but this was the sit-around-and-rock-some-pinball-characterization issue, mainly Hope bouncing off the elder crew in interesting ways that can’t usually happen when they’re fighting the mutant menace of the month. This book remains a strong entry in the merry Marvel tradition of new mutant titles.
X-FACTOR #217—And PAD pulls in the ever-lovin’ mighty mayor of New York City as an engaging guest star/target, and heck if old JJJ isn’t as engaging and relatable as he’s ever been. PAD dials the rabid Spider-hate way back and does his best to make us care about one of our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler’s oldest antagonists. And man, I can’t speak highly enough of the art. Gorgeous work, all around. Then we get just a hell of a double cliffhanger, made much more ominous by the reveal of next issue’s cover. Still doing everything for you that 22 pages ought to be monthly at just $2.99, folks!
MORNING GLORIES #8—So yeah, this arc definitely looks like it’s going to straight up go the L O S T route and have flashbacks about one individual character per issue, revealing information pertaining to events as they unfold. And if you think I just have a disease, tell me that isn’t Hurley at the bottom of Page 12 firing Hunter from Mr. Cluck’s (of course, we all know that Hurley was never manager, he went straight from quitting as fry cook to winning the lottery to buying the entire franchise, but this is clearly an alternate reality, anyway). Anyway, yeah, this is yet another intriguing issue, inching things along while implying a grand plan for the overarching narrative. Will Nick Spencer’s exclusive with Marvel and subsequent corporate work dilute or supercharge the intensity of his work on this title? I’m hoping the latter.
THE UNWRITTEN #23—Well, of course, it shouldn’t be strange that all kinds of madness gets thrown down in #23 of this particular title. Eminently logical and sensible reveal as to what the whale really is, along with being maybe my favorite splash of the entire series thus far. And then we even get a nice little nod to the Savage/Falk THE PRINCESS BRIDE dynamic on that last page. We are all the consumers of story. And this is a really, really good one. Because, not only is it about all of them, but in the end, it’s about us, the ones who perform the alchemy that change the words or words and pictures on a page into so much more.
BRIGHTEST DAY#22—I, ah, thought this was running four more issues after this, so was kind of freaked out that so much was going down. But looks like #24 is it. I bet it’s a pretty big damn finish, this has been the best weekly since 52, with the art even a step up. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes down.
ADVENTURE COMICS #524—No huge bombshells in this issue, just solid characterization from Paul Levitz and top-drawer draftsmanship from Phil Jiminez. Enjoyable, if not particularly flattening. I think I sequenced it wrong.
****
CASANOVA: GULA #3—Took me exactly 1:08 to make it through, though it must be said that I had an omega humdinger of an idea about five pages in that must have taken me out of commission for at least ten or twenty minutes. It is unreal how good this book is! Zephyr’s massacre is even more gorgeous than I remembered, due in no small part to the added tones, I’m sure. It is a shame how it broke down, though, with the doubled-up issues. New readers didn’t have a month off in between #12 and #13 to chew over the absolute carnage that Cass’s sister wreaks. Which is a shame, what with all the reversal that goes down the next issue, now just a few pages later. That’s basically reaching as hard as I can to say anything less than superlative about the glorious eruption that is this book. I’ve only read #14 the one time. It was one of the best single issue hits of my life, to the point that I have locked myself out of even opening the fucking thing back up, because to do it again, to really do it right, you would have to now be blasting the mix, one song per page, get that shit all synched up right, but to get the list, right, you’d have to open the book up and go through it page by page. But I don’t want to do that, see all those pages again, until everything is just perfect. So up until now, I’ve chicken-egged myself out of the experience altogether. And, and I think I remember the business, the heavy shit, the flip twist reveal that makes one reconsider the entire GULA run in a new light. But I really really want to just grab #14 out of my longbox and rip through it. But haven’t touched the initial run since we got going over here at Marvel, found all these pretty colors. I hope I can wait.
Want to rip my jaw off over the idea of new material, at this point. If I had to go down to one title a month, this would be it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)