3/21/12

TINY TITANS #50—(I suspect that this final issue will eventually take BestofWeek. However, it is taking a bit longer to rock a marathon 52-issue reread with a three-year-old than I initially reckoned upon. Watch this space!)

BATMAN #7—This one didn’t blow me up as much as previous installments. Capullo/Glapion still turn in gorgeous panels, but the story wandered a bit too far into melodrama for my taste. The “He was your great-grandfather!” line coming in from out of nowhere and the necessity of decking Dick Grayson to prove a point, in particular. Though, of course, you have to admire Bruce’s control and finesse. It takes some serious ninja precision to pinpoint a particular tooth to knock out with one punch! I remain quietly optimistic about this little event coming up here. Also looking forward to Albuquerque backup pencils next month.

WONDER WOMAN #7—Huh. The Amazons are siren/rapists and traded their boychildren to Hephaestus for weapons. I guess it makes sense in this new Greek context, but it’s kind of gross. Glad to have Chiang back, though, hey. Like a few other books from the relaunch, I’m enjoying this one well enough in individual issues but feel like they should be building toward a greater sum than they have thus far.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #7—Huh. Johns waited until Lee was gone to finally turn in a script that did it for me. Maybe I just wasn’t feeling every aspect of the whole together-again-for-the-first-time situation in the first arc, but this whole thing went much better for me. GL and Flash giving Batman the business, the throwaway bit with the umbrella for Aquaman, these little beats worked for me in a way that was falling entirely flat in the first arc. A strange call to make Steve Trevor suddenly the focus of this one, but it worked well enough for me. It seems like Johns is trying to mine out some of that superheroes vs/as government territory first carved out by Ellis a long long time ago in STORMWATCH/AUTHORITY and cursorily explored by Millar in ULTIMATES once he got his grubby Scottish hands on old Hitch. Is Johns trying to make the writer-guy the villain now, suddenly? That would be an odd play for the Trade Federation.

The Shazam backup is anathema. Beautiful work from Gary Frank as always, but turning Billy Batson into a bastard and making Shazam grim’n’gritty with a hoodie is pretty much straight-up caricature out of the gate. Like, if Michael Kupperman was dropping this, I’d be laughing my ass off. It just doesn’t seem like they’re joking, here. I can appreciate that if the Kunkel version didn’t take off and bringing the TINY TITANS guys in to write didn’t work, then you need a different approach, but this is a thousand times no not it. You have to have a certain amount of respect for the source material. Jettison too much and you might as well have created a different character. If you make Wonder Woman a heartless lying bitch trying to succeed in the world of big business, well, it’s not really Wonder Woman anymore, is it? Wish they would have given Palmiotti/Connor a shot at the boy reporter whose greatest wish comes true, those would have been fun comics. And, more than most characters, it seems important to me for Shazam to remain fun. Not not not hanging out in a dark alley. In a hoodie. Seriously.

FABLES #115—Again, not much new to report. This series remains a fine example of an engaging serial narrative distributed in a monthly format. Still holding my breath for the Bad Sam arc.

KICK-ASS 2#7—What a wild rumpus! Not much surprising in here, which is actually kind of a shock, in and of itself. Old Millar certainly likes to pull the rug out whenever he gets a wild idea, regardless of how well he’s set it up. Maybe it’s having Hit-Girl pull a Captain America, there. I don’t know, I’m not wild about the idea of a HIT-GIRL mini that takes place in-between the first and second volumes of this, if she winds up where she was in Vol 2 #1, who really cares what happens over the course of her own spinoff? All the dirty words she said? I bought this thinking that it might be my last Millar comic, but then that eight-page Gibbons preview was actually pretty solid. And I don’t know how I can not buy Quitely pages. *shakes fist at Millar*

THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #514—Fraction continues to keep the plates spinning and wring Tony’s planned relapse for every iota of story potential possible. Which, why not? This one continues to deliver the goods on a monthly basis.

X-FACTOR #233—We finally get to see the classic all-new all-different team back in action. I like how Kirk even dresses Val Cooper up in her c. ’91 wardrobe, the trenchcoat and tie. Really glad that Layla just cut through the bullshit as soon as she woke up, PAD knows that none of us want to sit through months of Madrox agonizing in caption boxes over all of that business. More true words on the recap page yet again. With this and FABLES coming out on the same day, there is a bedrock of reliability to the third week of the month that no other weeks can hope to match. Oh, and I enjoyed the letters column, how PAD kept nonchalantly jacking up the number of issues they produce per year. Hilarious business.

BEST OF WEEK: PROPHET #23—I really love this series. Graham & Roy do a fantastic job of presenting a satisfying episode in and of itself while still managing to launch their ongoing narrative right on off beyond the stratosphere. Even more than in previous installments, this really comes across as Moebius dropping some serious John Carter-type science pulp adventure. I’m crazy for it. Really dig the tone of the prose, the long-shot detail of whatever crazy thing our hero’s stumbled across next, and the gorgeous colors gracing the pages. I especially appreciate the way the entire thing just trapdoors out into the galaxy at the end of this one. Can’t imagine what they’ve got in the hopper for the fourth damn issue when this is what they do to shut down the third one. Top-drawer work/why we show up on Wednesday/everyone should be reading this to their children and pets/etc, etc…

3/14/12

BEST OF WEEK: FANTASTIC FOUR #604—I read this issue with a growing amount of dread and trepidation that cycled back and fed upon itself with every successive page. As I have noted in this space for the last few installments, there has been a strong feeling within the past few issues of this run that this story has been hurtling toward its logical end. Conclusive narrative gravitation, if you will. Which is a tricky thing on Marvel’s original flagship superhero serial. I mean, it’s not like they’re just going to quietly tuck this one in and give it the royal sendoff. The next logical conclusion was that Hickman was dropping the mic, blowing up everything on his way out the door Morrison-style and best of luck to the poor chump next month. This scenario seems most likely from the cover on, which is just the kind of generic team shot usually reserved for the first or last issue of an arc or run. It didn’t help when all that Kirby Krackle started erupting between Franklin and the Celestials. Or when Nathaniel makes direct reference to Reed going through the bridge way back in that very first arc, the DARK REIGN mini before they even let Hickman on the main book. And the hits keep on coming. That page about your children simply becoming who they’re going to be followed by those two pages of insanity. “TO ME . . . MY GALACTUS!” is some of the craziest shit that has ever gone down in this book, and that is really saying something. I love the flip on the consequences of our Reed choosing differently than all of his counterparts. And all the different shots of the extensive ensemble that Hickman has introduced and co-opted all pausing to watch the second sun, just a hell of a montage, there. Though what a final scene. Devastating imagery. Better than anyone since the initial glorious run, Hickman has drilled down into the beating heart of this book. What makes it work is not all the mad-science trappings, Negative Zones and Ultimate Nullifiers and Latverian despots. It’s the simple and eternal connections between family.

I made it to the end of the story. It didn’t actually say THE END, but the last page was all black and just had THE FANTASTIC FOUR logo with a 4. About as definitive and ending as we’re going to get from a #604 when there has to be a #605 coming the next month. Then we turn the page to an epilogue that’s a callback to the prologue from #570, Hickman’s first issue on the main title. It was perfect. I was crushed. Probably my favorite run of modern-day serial comics had come to a conclusion and provided satisfaction on every level, three years’ worth of plot threads spiraling up and around each other culminating in a resolution that naturally follow from all that had gone before and still managed to take my breath away. One of the best series finales I’ve ever made it through. I was gutted.

But oh look, Hickman’s still writing both books next month. Just on to the next tale. Cannot begin to imagine what he’s got planned next.

LOCKE & KEY #5—Wow. On the way to a New Orleans con six weeks ago, my friend put the first volume of this series in my hands. I’ve been hearing the hype for months and months and dove in, curious to see if it could possibly live up to the blistering acclaim. It surpassed it. When we stopped at Lake Charles for lunch, I let the crew go on inside and stayed in the van because I couldn’t put down Volume 2. The bastard left Volumes 3 and 4 at his house, so I had to purchase them at the con immediately, rabid to find out what happened next. When I made it to the end of 4, knew there was no way I’d be waiting until the middle of summer for the aftermath of all of that. But #s 1 and 2 of Volume 5 were sold-out and out-of-print. Oh noes! It was only Monday night of this week that another dear friend pointed out that we could just digitally download them. Off to the races! Jammed #s 1 and 2 Monday night, 3 and 4 Tuesday night (store-bought singles, waiting for weeks to be read) and there I was, right in the middle of SXSW with #5 piping hot off the rack and waiting to be consumed. So, it’s hard to just review the single issue. And you might say that I am one who is given to hyperbole from time to time. But, at least until MAD MEN finally clocks back in this weekend, this might be my very favorite story that’s currently being serialized in any medium. It is five-star top-of-the-line knocking-every-issue-into-the-stratosphere just damn good comics. What if Stephen King had a son who was pretty much a master storyteller before his first issue ever came out and so there was no learning curve whatsoever, from the very beginning every story beat and character interaction and line of dialogue was perfectly resonant, presaging what is yet to come and calling back to what’s gone before with surgical precision, with symphonic rhapsody? And then he found the perfect artist? This is not only one of my favorite horror stories of all time, it’s one of my favorite, period.

Um, #5 of Volume 5 was really good. It’s going to be a long month.

SAGA #1—Gaaaaaah, this week just about blew me out, what a ridiculous level of quality. I can remember when I was ignoring his ULTIMATE X-MEN run and still picking up three monthly titles from him, but it’s been a couple years now since all that came to an end and Brian K. Vaughan’s published output dropped to nothing. He’s still been working on material, graphic novels and this, presumably, but I had forgotten how much I dig his beats, in-dialogue and the way that he paces a plot. He’s enticed Fiona Staples to blast off with him on this bold new adventure and lady makes it happen on every conceivable level. As much as I love the art, the species designs, the very human expressions on the aliens’ faces, the layouts, my favorite thing she does might be the hand-lettered narration. Beautiful work. The premise here is, if not boilerplate then fairly standard, as far as space opera goes. We’ve got a Romeo & Juliet-type situation and open the story with the birth of the child of the forbidden union. Then, everybody runs around and talks good. It’s basically as simple as that, but the creators imbue their alien characters with such a degree of (I can only describe it as) humanity that we’re onboard with them almost at once, fully engaged in their fairly serious dilemma. Probably my sole gripe is that the mom drops “retarded” as a pejorative, which, never mind how you feel about it, feels like such a 21st Century Earth bit of slang that it trapdoored me right out of the story for a second, there. Still, this is just ANOTHER new #1 that I’m so grateful to have, can’t believe how many tremendous new monthlies are falling out of the sky lately.

THE AVENGERS #24—PurpleOsbornHulk! Because why not. Storm speaking in contractions does not ring true for me. We’re finally done with Osborn? Kind of a silly way for him to go down after all this time, but whatever gets the job done. Bring on Simonson. Please.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #635—Gillen continues to show off his chops here. Another fine and silly recap page. And plenty of work invested into each individual dreamer who we only meet for a page or two, the lad is earning his pounds for this work, yes.

GLORY #24—This one didn’t destroy me quite as much as last time, if only because I was expecting it to, the old sophomore jinx. Also, the mixed-breed between warring tribes bit fell a little flat for me this month after the SAGA. It was still solid work, Ross Campbell turns in some compelling draftsmanship and, again, really needs to be lauded for his refusal to adhere to the decades-old stereotype of drawing a bunch of women with D-cups rocking brokeback poses.

CONAN #2—The first issue blew everything out of the water the week that it came out, and I think I like this one better. Wood continues to balance just enough Courier captions to give us a flavor of Howard’s original source material but still provide the images of this more visual medium a chance to breathe. To sing, even. Cloonan again turns in work that is the equal of her formidable output to date, really doing a fine job of imbuing her protagonist with body language and facial expressions that convey his youth and arrogance, an interesting variation on the chiseled Frazetta barbarian that everyone knows and loves. And, yeah, a last page that leaves you wanting more immediately. Also, again, enjoyed that Two-Gun Bob strip, the words he was writing interesting enough before you make it to the end and find out to whom the letter is addressed.

MOUSE GUARD: THE BLACK AXE #4—Quite some time after #3, David Petersen finally delivers the next piece of his third volume and it is well worth the wait. Some beautiful rendering here, you can definitely see how the battle with the fox took much longer to draw than previous issues. Beautiful work, but I’ve got to say that I’m ready to get back to the present. Or 1152, whenever the first two volumes took place. It is past time for Spring 1153.

THE UNWRITTEN #35—Um, wow. I thought this was running 50 issues? Maybe that was a pre-.5 issues plan, don’t see now how there could be more than one epilogue arc to go. Huge payoffs and business going down, prehistoric secret origins revealed, people and wands and guns melting into words just all over the place. Very satisfying. I guess #35.5 is probably going to be a hell of a thing. I’m interested to see what they’ll do next, this has been quite the ride.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #7—This ballistic arc roars on with an aerial batmobile/tank crashing through the walls at the last possible second. It seemed to come to a conclusion but then we get another twist on the last page, there. Gleason’s work is starting to look a bit strained if you go back and compare the linework to #1, but kudos to him for maintaining the monthly grind. There were a couple of terrible lines in this that I really can’t believe came from Tomasi, Batman’s “BLEED . . . BADLY” bit and then Damian’s last line. Clichés are pretty much never the way you want to leave off with your reader on the last page, no matter how clever they are, and this one simply wasn’t. Don’t know how that came out of him. This book is still holding its own in a very crowded and strong line of Batman family books, though.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E #7—Fine work here, Lemire and Ponticelli turn in one of their best issues yet. Going to be a shame to lose Lemire on this one, but I’ll probably hang out and give his buddy a chance.

GREEN LANTERN #7—Mahnke/Alamy return as we launch into Part 1 of the next thing. I don’t know, Carol’s Star Sapphire again, Black Hand returns . . . I didn’t really care when those things happened the first time. This run looks like it’s starting to eat itself. Lately, I’ve been dropping mainstream superhero titles I’ve been picking up out of habit and shifting more in the direction of creator-owned. This run that I’ve been picking up for seven years now might be next.

BATWOMAN #7—This book is suffering from spoiling us with JHW3 interiors for a few months in a row out of the gate. I know that those pages aren’t anywhere near monthly work, but I hoped that the massive lead-time (#1 was originally solicited for Feb 2011, no?) would have given us more than five issues in a row. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal if I was more into this art. It might be worse that Reeder is trying to mimic Williams’s innovative layouts, which only serves to highlight the massive discrepancies in their styles. Or maybe I’m just not feeling the inks and colors. Also, the jumping between timelines and characters. Like I said last month, I’m all about it when it serves a purpose, tightens up the dramatic tension, but so far it’s just a series of scenes that seem thrown out haphazardly and haven’t had a chance to connect up after forty pages, now. I was almost getting into it toward the end there, oh no, she’s got to go steal Croc from Maggie, that could be cool, but then scene-shift to the present, a confrontation I don’t care about and limp cliffhanger to take us out. I read that someone else was taking over art for #9, meaning JHW3 isn’t coming back next. I don’t know, I might bench this one until he does.

3/07/12

These comics were consumed beginning at 1:30 early Thursday morning after scalping tickets to see Radiohead and then consuming Jameson on a patio in south Austin, so, started the experience in a bit stranger place than usual.

ACTION COMICS #7—After a superior two-issue interlude, we jump back into the opening arc with Morales and Bryant. Cool opening scene getting 1930s-power-level Superman into space. The best bit by far is the multi-planet origin of Brainiac, makes all kinds of sense. Chilling. I enjoyed the main feature well enough, but hope it wraps up after the next issue. Which I bet it will, now that he pulled his new costume out of nowhere. The back-up feature was pretty weak, filler. I’ve enjoyed a few of Sholly Fisch’s stories, but this one fell flat for me. I’ve got to say, why aren’t these a lot cooler? Is this the best DC can do to back up Morrison On ACTION? You know? If a Steel feature is it, it needs to be handled by at least B-list talent. But why not Giffen on Jimmy Olsen? Kelly Sue DeConnick & Emma Rios on Lois Lane? Busiek penning a Perry White feature? These Steel tangents are frankly boring. Though I appreciate them at least offering additional pages for the higher cover price.

O.M.A.C. #7—Superman! In the finest Kirby tradition, we open with a wall-smashing punch-up! And Giffen even gets to draw the big guy’s face and S. Can’t believe I didn’t figure out the bit about the tiger. Though maybe I was just bummed that the talking animals didn’t all find a way to work their own names into dialogue in the group panel in which they first appeared. I guess Didio’s setting up a Kamandi feature at some point? I’d be delighted to see this creative team carry on with that. This remains a lot of fun, will be sorry to see it go after next month.

ANIMAL MAN #7—Going to miss Travel Foreman, but Pugh shows here that he’s got more than enough chops to keep steering this book along in the disturbing direction to which we’ve become accustomed. Strange glimpse of the future, there, little Maxine and Constantine seemed older but was Buddy’s mother-in-law still the same age? Or just still really really old? I’m still digging this, but it feels like it’s spinning its wheels a little bit after all of this time. Enough driving around, I crave Beast War!

SWAMP THING #7—I guess this is the end of the first arc? It’s quite a powerful image to go out on. This feels like the climax and culmination of the first movement. Unless there’s more of a definitive ending next month, but it’s a great beat to go out on, very reminiscent of the definitive oft-referenced Moore run. Snyder has taken his time, not as much rolling with a decompressed pace a la Bendis, but really investing the months and pages in enough character groundwork that when Alec makes his inevitable and only decision, the reader can see how far he’s come. And, my God, Paquette. I don’t understand why more people aren’t freaking out about him. Innovative layouts, an unreal amount of detail in his linework, the man has been knocking it out of the park for quite some time now. This one has swung up on the old Green/Red seesaw, I’m now much more invested in seeing what’s going to happen in this book vs Lemire’s. Though it will be neat-o when they finally intersect.

BEST OF WEEK: THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #1—Good lord, I was expecting quite a lot, have been since I first heard about the book and got to see some pages last November, but this blast of madness exceeded my expectations by far. I thought Hickman was swinging for the fences as hard as he could during these past three years of FF, but the amount of crazy he manages to pack into this debut issue can only be compared to Morrison. Several great ideas that he just tosses off like they were mundane. Divergence engines mining imaginary weapons, sentient origami, a kamikaze killing machine Zen-powered by Death Buddhists, this is why I show up every Wednesday, ladies and gentlemen. And Pitarra turns in somehow better work than what we got in last year’s THE RED WING, rock-solid composition and masterful detail that belie his years. His style is an engrossing amalgamation of Quitely, Darrow, and Burnham. And Cris Peter’s tones not only support the story but lend it considerable narrative depth. This is top-shelf comics right here, creator-owned or otherwise. Really delighted to be getting started with this crew. Especially if Feynman is narrating, I mean, my God.

THE BOYS #64—Yas yas, I keep saying it, but it keeps being more and more true, Ennis is clearly ramping up here to the endgame. We are not getting a latebreaking announcement that this series will now be running until #80. Butcher gets a couple of sentimental beats here before the awful end, that line about wanting to toughen Hughie up was great, but the bit about Mallory came so far out of nowhere that it really did a number on me. What is the mystery of Black Noir?

FATALE #3—Yeah, the plot keeps thickening and I find it hard to believe that Brubaker says he needs a full 15 issues versus 12 to tell the story. Got no problem with it, just can’t imagine how far we’re going to go. Nice to open up with the present day, I was wondering when we were going to get back to that. This is fine work again, again, just installment # one-hundred-something of Brubaker/Phillips in perfect tandem, with Dave Stewart certainly not hurting the cause, never.

FAIREST #1—Huh. If there was one book that was not going to fail the Bechdel test this week, I would have put up good money that it would be this one. I was kind of furious when I made it through the first pass. This is ostensibly a spinoff from FABLES featuring the considerable female cast that make up half of that book’s ensemble. Jimenez and Lanning’s pages look better than ever. The pages are still on that really cheap newsprint that only some Vertigo books seem to get saddled with, but I can live with that. The ridiculous part is that this pilot issue is all about Ali Baba and a bottle imp and a lone wooden soldier still running around tearing shit up even though the war has been over for 40 issues now. The only women that appear in the entire issue are asleep. One of them gets a line on the last page. If you remove the context, there’s nothing wrong with this on a narrative level. It’s as good as your average issue of FABLES. But as the debut issue of FAIREST, I find it extraordinarily lacking from someone I’ve come to respect and trust as much as Willingham. Here’s hoping for something much more substantive from the XX corner next month.

THE DEFENDERS #4—No Dodsons! Well, at least we’ve got monsters like Lark/Guadiano to carry the weight, fresh off their excellent issue of Ellis’s SECRET AVENGERS. This is pretty much a solo Dr. Strange issue, but there’s nothing wrong with that, I almost liked it better than the first arc. A bit less action from the advertising/surreal non-sequiturs this time out, or maybe I just didn’t know the song lyrics? Still can’t get over the logic of Marvel charging $4 for this and $3 for Hickman FFs and Waid DAREDEVIL, but enjoying it as long as it lasts.

2/29/12

When is the last time that new comics came out on Leap Day? Quite some time, I reckon. Respect the milestone! After all of that indie last week, we are about to dive headfirst into corporate comics. Beware!

TINY TITANS #49—AyeGod, the penultimate issue and the boys don’t pull any punches. We get another random grouping of characters in the form of the Squishy Titans, ostensibly led by Plasmus, with Bumblebee hanging around I guess for company, returning friends like Offspring and Proty from the 31st Century, as well as Clayface, who I don’t think has shown up in these pages as of yet. The standout this issue is, no question, Clayface’s splash-page tirade on what all you can do with mud, which still about knocks my kid right off her bed a few days and twenty reads later. Fine fine work. It is ridiculous how badly reading the last issue next month is going to cut out my heart.

BEST OF WEEK: FF #15—Hickman simply cannot stop knocking it out of the solar system. This one’s the flipside to last week’s flagship title, a few pages are even the exact same dialogue, every time that the kids intersect the adult team, but their journey here contains its own engaging character beats (Valeria to Kristoff, Franklin calling Leech his best friend) that are the heart and soul of this book, never mind all the Kirby Krackle and Celestial bombast. I’ve certainly been wondering about the mysterious figure in white since #600 and had some fun guessing his identity throughout this issue. I had been thinking it was Nathaniel but then settled on Tesla about halfway through this one. I spent the previous week just blown away by the last page of FANTASTIC FOUR and the trick Hickman pulls at the end of this one makes me glad that they weren’t released on the same day like last month, so I had that extra time to let the cliffhanger really percolate in my imagination. I’m starting to fear that Hickman’s run is coming to an end and no one’s told me, because it really really seems like everything that he’s been building to for the past three years is coming to an end, just any week now. And what’s with the AVX preview knocking out my split-page Coming Attractions for next month? I dig that. Oh, I've got to say, put me down with the folks who loved Bobillo's crazy indie style for these kids. Sorry to see him go so quickly, but Dragotta certainly picks up the slack. Also, talking art, I've got to take old Mike Choi to task for giving Julie Power a Britney Spears mid-riff costume on the cover when she’s rocking the same old full-body threads on the interior pages. We don’t have to see her belly to take her seriously as a character! Thanks for leaving Katie’s costume alone.

THE NEW AVENGERS #22—Deodato draws the shit out of this, fantastic double-page spread on 2 and 3, tweaking what he did last month. It still seems a bit ridiculous that we’re spending this much time on Osborn so soon after DARK REIGN, but Bendis makes the characters interactions just barely worth the $4 ride.

THE AVENGERS #23—Cool to see Daisy quake it up, as ever. Nice moment when the military shows up at the mansion to synch the two books up, I was wondering about that. Just three more of these and then we’re done with Osborn, yah?

JUSTICE LEAGUE #6—Well, Johns finally shows up here with some character moments that, while probably not as deft as the business he was regularly rocking years ago on JSA, at least manage to live up to the art and not come across as lowest-common-denominator as the series has thus far. That was supposed to be a compliment. The camaraderie between the team doesn’t come across as staged as it has up until now. Though Hal Jordan’s dialogue still seems a bit forced, which makes no sense at all, given that Johns has been writing the guy monthly for, what, like eight years, now? It was a nice touch that the everyman guy turned out to be the author of the backmatter a couple months back. As for the Pandora story, I found it mostly ridiculous. Been thinking she was Raven, but now she’s maybe Zealot? Or an amalgam? Possibly the daughter of Darkseid referenced in the main story? That’s not a horrible set-up, but the minute she went all acrobatic Grifter on THE PHANTOM STRANGER, I experienced a severe disconnect. I mean, first the Swamp Thing punchout in the last issue of BLACKEST NIGHT and now this. Yes, it’s been twenty years now, the minimum distance for official classic-rock-level-nostalgia, but that really doesn’t mean that we want to bring back the 90s again, even with hyperkewl magic guns. When writing The Phantom Stranger, aim for Moore and Gaiman, not Lobdell and Harras. No matter who the boss is.

THE UNWRITTEN #34.5—We get an even more engaging .5 than usual, the secret origin of Wilson Taylor (which of course turns out to not even be his real name). This basically functions as the zero issue for the entire series, chronicling the point at which the patriarch first stumbles upon the power of story and the effect that believing in it can affect reality. I’m now remembering the old lady who shows up at the end of this, whose origin I think we caught in 32.5. I really need to marathon back through all of these before the finale, it’s going to bring a lot of threads together that I think are eluding me in the month-by-month. Another solid done-in-one, great Erskine art. Though, you know what, the unrelenting pace of getting pummeled by this biweekly is starting to hit me, bring on #36 and a three weeks’ respite.

SPACEMAN #4—More top-flight work from one of the most synergistic teams in the industry. Azzarello’s gift for dialogue might have never been more in evidence, incredible things he does with phonetics and abbreviations, somehow completely futuristic and grounded in believability at the same time. That cliffhanger, it looks like Orson might have some trouble with his remote sexgirl. Which, we’ve all been there.

2/22/12

PROPHET #22—Another solid slab of science pulp goodness. Gone are the sideburns, the headdress. The shoulderpads. The tone of Prophet’s wanderings through this desolate wasteland bring a certain Confederate veteran named Carter to mind. This issue survives the inevitable sophomore slump, now that my expectations are so jacked up from the first issue. A satisfying episode in its own right, but this time with a set-up promising that next month will be even better. Really digging on this.

CHEW #24—All right, I was fortunate enough to get to sit down with Layman & Guillory last month in New Orleans, and there was no way that I was going to not be up to date on the title, so I got off the tradewaiting bench and snatched up #21-23 and 27 (solid little mindfuck, that), all of which to say that this is the first issue of this excellent series that I read the day that it came out, and I have to tell you, sign me up for 36 more issues of exactly that. Our main character continues to spend almost the entire issue off-panel, but this time the spotlight is on the undercover trio of Olive, Mason, and Caesar. These characters play off each other so well, you want them just to get a spinoff to themselves. We get a new power, courtesy of Hershel Brown, whose opening scene might be the funniest one this issue has supplied yet. Not even counting the Southpark and Kirkmanly Easter eggs. And just when I couldn’t be more pleased with myself for picking this up the day it comes up, McLain McGuire’s right arm makes the letter column, a thrill for all to behold! We are all of us, creators and readers alike, having far too much fun with a series about superpowered cannibal FDA agents.

MORNING GLORIES #16—Man, Image certainly dropped a cluster of bombs the week before the Expo. This is more L O S T than your average shot of MGA, which is really saying something (we even get the word in-dialogue again, page 6, panel 2), but what we have here is a double-flashback, our present-tense Casey time-travelled back to the same military base where she lived with her parents when she was three, getting grilled by some MPs and then meeting that younger version of her dad, then that juxtaposed against a later flashback in the neighborhood of a hypothetical #0 relating the process of Casey getting accepted into the academy, her parents blocking her attendance before relenting, then a last-shot revelation on the part of her father that might have led to the shock ending of #1? Then Miz Hodge reprises her return to the campus from a few issues back, her first appearance, I want to say, but I’m not 100% on why we’re getting, I think verbatim, that entire scene again for five full pages unless it’s to ground this timeline in the Holy Shit! fact that the last page takes place no earlier than just a few issues back and Casey has just been hanging around for that dozen+ years, doing Spencer knows what. Fodder for flashbacks in the 30s and 40s, no doubt. I sense this series might read better in trade, but I just can’t wait! Certainly a gripping installment, here. Fine work, all around.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #24—On the other hand, this one suffers a bit from the episodic format. I get that you need some page-space to most effectively convey a fight between a vampire and a hunter aboard a dragster hurtling down the road. It just felt a bit, I’m so sorry, skinny by the time I made it through? I’m probably missing the point, but after two years, I want Skinner Sweet to be just like the least bit nuanced. He’s just so nasty, reptilian-tongue-angled-out baaaaad! I’m absolutely not rooting for him the way Harris gets you on-board with Lecter or Hill dials you in to whatever we’re calling the antagonist of LOCKE & KEY now (#1,2 bumper compendium released next week, absolutely cannot wait to finally dive in to Volume 5). Albuquerque, of course, continues to make it happen on every level.

FLASH #6—I couldn’t quite click with this one, either, certainly not as well as with the first five of these. Maybe it just still seems too weird having someone else lay her head in Barry’s lap, maybe it was the stilted boyfriend/girlfriend dialogue, maybe it was actually all the time-jumps (and as an acolyte of fractured storytelling who cut his teeth on Tarantino and adores L O S T, if it’s too jilting for me, then we definitely have a problem, Houston). All that said, the art is still top-notch and they still manage to finally pick up enough steam to roar toward a hell of a cliffhanger.

THE MIGHTY THOR #11—Deplorable art. Even Ferry’s pages look rushed. The lack of this kind of fill-in malarkey is exactly what’s kept me onboard with IRON MAN, you’ve got to respect those guys showing up every month. Just about ready to walk, but don’t want to bail on Fraction and keep hoping the next arc will be a return to greatness. Wait, they’re about to launch into another event, you say?

BEST OF WEEK: FANTASTIC FOUR #603—Man, as tremendous as all that creator-owned output was this week (and I didn’t even get BULLETPROOF COFFIN), Hickman & Kitson continue to do nothing less than simply rocket this thing up out of orbit each and every chance they get. The accrued weight of the narrative is approaching critical mass, it has to be. The fact that the Staple con is this weekend made me realize that we’re coming right up on the end of three years of Hickman’s run and it just keeps building, swollen up now to something almost beyond belief, over a dozen characters who can barely be contained by two monthly titles. The guy is still running with and organically developing threads that he first started weaving in a damn DARK REIGN mini-series that had to drop in out of nowhere in 2009 to pick up the slack because Millar/Hitch couldn’t be counted upon and ultimately failed to deliver 16 issues in a row of the flagship title. Highlights from this glorious issue include Bentley threatening an orbiting Fantastic Five with destruction before getting shoved aside so that Valeria can tell her dad that she knows she’s grounded, Franklin’s reunion with Uncle Johnny, Galactus fighting and killing a Celestial amidst copious Kirby krackle before getting blasted all to hell when his three brothers Voltron up into a mega-Celestial, and then a final page-turn so grand and glorious that it just about has to bring a tear to any parents’ eye. This is the story of a post-nuclear family who loves each other, fighting to save the universe from itself, and it has been one of my favorite things ever. I never want to read the words THE END but really can’t see how much longer this seething cosmic furnace can sustain itself before at long last burning out.

2/15/12

BATMAN #6—The first phase of this conflict draws to a close with our hero finally managing to overcome the new antagonist who’s been outclassing him since first dropping in (always a dicey proposition in a BATMAN title, but the creative team pulls it off as well as possible). However, from that last page, we see that they’re just getting started, these owl folk are going to be up to no good for quite some time to come. I like how the book threads the line of ambiguity between whether they’re all wearing masks and Bruce is just seeing them as owls because he’s all doped up or what. Capullo/Glapion deliver satisfying catharsis with Batman finally roaring up and beating the hell out of Talon. Really dynamic good-looking pages, there. Can’t remember the last time a punch getting thrown looked so good. Half a year down the line, this team is still performing at the height of their creative powers and delivering one of the finest books on the rack today.

WONDER WOMAN #6—Oh, I miss the Chiang. Akins doesn’t drop the ball by any means, but Chiang put such an indelible stamp on his first four issues that anyone else has just a hell of a time picking up the pieces. More shenanigans with Hera this time out, as Diana manipulates her fish uncle Poseidon right where she needs him to be in order to get the better of her, I don’t know, wicked stepmother? Not quite, but close enough. Azzarello continues to entertain and never overly explain in this supercollision of Greek myth and the Wonder Woman mythos.

FABLES #114—We start off another arc (well, two, if you count the three-pager at the end) with a clearly malevolent toy tugboat who took me out of the story every single time he was on-panel by bringing to mind Tugger (“Tuggah”) of Foightin’ Round the World!-fame (see: SOUTHPARK 6.05). I’m going to have to get over that. We get another two pages of Bad Sam, a breakout-character-in-the-making if ever there was one, spend a little time with Bigby and Winter, as well as at home with Snow and the rest of the cubs, and really just set the stage for what’s to come. Willingham’s accrued long-term storytelling chops are seriously starting to freak me out.

DAREDEVIL #9—Waid continues to mine greatness from a well-tapped vein with the head-slappingly simple conceit of pitting our intrepid Man Without Fear against that original 616 antagonist, the Mole Man. More gorgeous pages and pitch-perfect characterization via caption dialogue. That first two-page spread from Rivera is as iconic as any shot in this character’s rich history. This run and Hickman over on FF(s) are the reason that I have no chance whatsoever of boycotting Marvel, despite all that righteous Kirby indignation that keeps crackling all up and around.

THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #513—Rhodey has a great entrance and then of course has to take Tony in, because isn’t that always the way. This one’s still earning its $4 cover, but I’d be all right if the fellas wanted to pack it in after another year or so.

X-FACTOR #232—Madrox makes it home! Gets laid! Bad guys from alternate dimensions follow him back! Still no sign of Alex & Lorna! PAD winks at long-time readers!

THE NEW AVENGERS #21—Because nobody demanded it, Clor 2 VS Luke Cage’s Avengers. Deodato certainly draws the hell out of it. I’ve said it before, but really wish Bendis would have left Osborn on the shelf and come up with something new rather than just revisit already-trod ground. Bringing back the Thor clone really drives the point home.

THE AVENGERS #22—Really, Obama? We’re going to make overtures to Osborn, now? I think if Bendis hadn’t already announced that this is his homestretch, if these runs still seemed open-ended, I would bail. But there are just another couple dozen+ $4 singles before he takes his bow. Of course, they’ll get Hickman and I’ll be on the hook for another five+ years.

****

BEST OF WEEK: GLORY #23—A revelation. As much as I’ve been digging on Azzarello/Chiang’s reboot, this is probably the best single issue of WONDER WOMAN that I’ve ever read. Joe Keatinge pulls the seemingly impossible trick of not throwing out any of the character’s existing continuity, folding in the Alan Moore tweaks, and then making it his own streamlined version, all of this delivered in a manner that perfectly balances new-reader-friendly exposition with a combination of scenes that propel the action forward. And that doesn’t even count the nine-panel scene wherein, through dialogue alone, she basically cuts Supreme’s dick off and then flies away. And Ross Campbell. What a guy. I’ve never run across his work before, but it is thunder on every level. You just need a glance at that opening shot of her punching the tank to know. This dude is, among many other things, the Anti-Benes. Which is perfect for this book. I mean, think about it. This character, along with maybe Lady Death, represents the absolute nadir of comic book storytelling in the 90s. All Liefeld did was take Wonder Woman, chop a couple inches off her skirt, blow her bust size up to two or three times of its original level, and send her out into the world to bring home some money from pre-Internet fanboys titillated by all of that skin. By grafting on to the character just a bit of the whole fascination-with-mortals thing that keeps Thor hopping over that Rainbow Bridge, as well as playing down the soft curvy feminine cheesecake aspect in favor of emphasizing that she’s a bruiser who could straight up clean Supreme’s clock, Keatinge/Campbell perform one of the most improbable character rehabilitations of all time. Really impressed with this and PROPHET, Liefeld could not have hired better guys for the job.

2/08/12

BEST OF WEEK: CONAN #1—Oh my Crom. I am wild about DEMO and have picked up just about everything that Wood and Cloonan have released separately. And Dave Stewart is easily one of the best guys working today. So my expectations for this were pretty stratospheric. But these people still managed to absolutely blow me out of the water. I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of how much I loved every page of this. The captions in Courier New, conjuring old Bob Howard’s Underwood typewriter, where it all began. The dashing breadth and adventurous scope of Cloonan’s vistas, the energy of her figures hurling themselves headlong into danger, the cocksure grin on our hero’s normally dour visage. How Stewart uses the sky to control the light and tones, as he should, there is no artificial lighting to be had, even though Bêlit manages to conjure up her own lusty sort of foggy purple iridescence, which is a perfect fit. But it took active effort after the fact to parse these elements, these creators all turn in top-flight work that fuses into a unified narrative experience that carries the reader away, immerses us back in a time before the rise of the sons of Aryas, when a Cimmerian with not that many years of battle behind him fought and stole and laughed and loved, slew and sailed and drank and sought. This is already one of the best comics on the rack. And they’re just getting started.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #634—Once again, the recap page is worth the price of admission alone. There are some who might prefer their fantasy comics not to reference Tarantino and quote APOCALYPSE NOW back-to-back, but I am not that animal. And speaking of, the look in the hellhound’s eyes when it asks Hellstrom to be his master is perfection. Loki ripping up the narrative caption is also a fine thing. I was a fan of that page that recycled the art of Loki and Leah finding the source but adding Nightmare’s captions, it didn’t feel like a cheat, somehow. All of this just in time for Loki to recreate Mia Wallace’s fucking trippy moment in PULP FICTION, which of course gets telegraphed on the recap page. Elson’s art wasn’t quite as good this time out, but Gillen is in as fine a form as ever.

THE UNWRITTEN #34—All right, this is the first issue in which the double-down really seems to be doing a number on the art. It’s a lot closer to Perker’s work on AIR, which I was not crazy about, and not as good as Gross’s lines on the majority of this series. I’m sure that that will level out after this crazy double-arc, but the strain is starting to show. Just more than a lot going down on the story side of this thing, as ever. We’re not even to the end of the arc and get the answer that the council doesn’t really know anything and there must be much more going on than we’ve been led to believe thus far. Which makes sense, there’s no way something as winding and labyrinthine as this story about all stories could just coast into a tidy resolution. Great fun, looking forward to the next .5 in a couple of weeks.

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #6—Wow. In a month when some of the DC titles take a bit of a drop in quality, a natural result of settling into the no-late-shipping monthly deadline sprint rhythm, Lemire/Ponticelli/Villarrubia turn in arguably the strongest issue of this series thus far. I might have dragged the pacing out just a little bit and let that one humanid achieve sentience and run off with no follow-up until next month, spent the rest of the issue messing around in Vietnam with our cast going after Col. Quantum, but Frank sends him off to his reward in a brief but effective scene and we are on to the main show. O.M.A.C.’s boss has evolved the humanids in a nice bit of strategy to cripple S.H.A.D.E., our heroes are outnumbered, and the original Creature Commandoes are lurking on the last page! A wild pulp ride, twenty pages more than worth your three dollar bills.

GREEN LANTERN #6—Big shame to finally lose the Mahnke/Alamy streak. It’s been almost three years, maybe? Seems like there have only been maybe a couple fill-ins since Mahnke first showed up two and a half years ago to draw #43 of the previous volume on a prologue to Blackest Night. I’ve enjoyed Choi’s work in the past but it was really quite jarring in this context. I get that you can’t always find a perfect stylistic match for fill-ins, but if that’s going to be the case, the story should ideally somehow reflect that. Like, if this had been a flashback issue, then it wouldn’t have seemed so strange that Hal and Carol suddenly looked about ten years younger. The art switchup put the spotlight on the story and helped me see that I’m picking this up more out of habit than anything else after seven years, though honestly the Mahnke streak is a huge drawing point. Embattled times, Hal Jordan!

BATWOMAN #6—Man, I guess the dip was inevitable, but this was still a bit much. I haven’t checked out MADAME XANADU, so I don’t know if her covers are just like much better than her interiors, but this is not the caliber of work that I was expecting from Amy Reeder Hadley when she finally clocked in. And, I mean, it looks rushed. She’s had no small amount of lead time, hey. Anatomy should be a bit less wonkier than this. Respect for at least attempting a crazy Williams layout on pages 2 and 3 to preserve artistic continuity, but without his chops to back it up, even such a commendable effort falls a bit flat. And the story even seemed to be not quite as solid, jumping around in a way that seemed more scattershot than symphonic. I wish that they’d tag-teamed this book all artjam-style, the way they did in #0 with Williams handling the in-costume action and Hadley doing the Kate scenes, because that was a solid mesh, a very good fit. This came across as much more second-tier than it needs to if it’s going to sustain its audience for an entire arc with this set-up. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still better than a great deal of what’s on the rack, just not nearly as compelling as the first five issues have led me to expect from the series.

BATMAN & ROBIN #6—Tomasi/Gleason/Ward do a fantastic job upping the ante on this one. The cover alone is instantly classic, even though it pulls the classic doesn’t-happen-in-the-issue about-face. But there’s enough meat in here that I didn’t realize that until well after finishing the issue. Loved that splash of savage Bruce smashing through Morgan’s windshield. And Tomasi remembers right where to put Damian’s trademark *Tt*. This is a fine slice of serial entertainment, one that definitely has me on pins and needles for the next installment, which is no mean feat, six months in.