Controversies Edition!

ACTION COMICS #10 (DC)

Grant Morrison is probably the first writer after Geoff Johns to write the Justice League in the New 52.  Perhaps predictably, he goes against the grain.  This is the Morrison of JLA, but rather the one willing to subvert the mainstream, defy expectations, and end up with Superman as an outsider rather than the cheerful face of “normal.”  That’s about what Morrison has done with the Man of Steel since ALL STAR SUPERMAN, where he first postulated that Kal-El possesses a hyper sense of responsibility, rather than the more usual notion that he’s nothing more than a Big Blue Boy Scout.  He’s the one trying to get the team to have a little ambition, not to mention compassion, and if you really stop to think about it, it makes sense.  The rest of the team has very specific areas of interest and the one most identified as his opposite number is obsessive and controlling (that would be Batman, who even in Morrison’s interpretation of his best possible mode has established a network of allies that are most effective only in relation to him).  The thing that Morrison has been trying to stress in ACTION COMICS is the humanity of Clark Kent, which is an identity he readily sacrifices this issue (SPOILER ALERT, by the way), something he doesn’t even think twice about, because he’s more interested in his humanitarian mission than his own reputation.  Yes, he no doubt hears when Batman cracks that he’s going to be the League’s problem some day (and not in an IRREDEEMABLE way), but that’s not his problem, and he cares a great deal that his teammates don’t care about what he does.  That makes him irreplaceable.  Just like Grant Morrison.

AQUAMAN #9 (DC)

Okay, so this issues pretty much makes it official: Geoff Johns has gotten into GREEN LANTERN mode.  For the past few issues, he’s been exploring Aquaman’s association with a whole different set of superheroic allies from around the world, totally different from the Justice League, a lot more similar to him, actually.  He’s also brought back Black Manta, Aquaman’s greatest foe.  This issue, he inserts a key bit of mythology into their relationship, one that deepens both characters as well as the story I hope Johns will be telling for years to come.  I guess in hindsight it was clear that he wasn’t going to stick around THE FLASH with Barry Allen for too long, because that’s not something he did on that book (but definitely something he did in FLASHPOINT).  When he starts to shape an entire world that’s when you know he’s really invested, and that’s something he’s started to really get into here.  Here is an issue any self-respecting fan of superhero comics ought to read, because it’ll be important later.

AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #5 (Marvel)

This should be another of those moments, but owing to the length of the event book, the Phoenix choosing its new host becomes a little convoluted, leaving Hope behind and entering into a few of the X-Men, who are still contractually obligated to be diametrically opposed to the Avengers.  On the other hand, Matt Fraction does a good job writing Iron Man as he appears in the movies, so that’s something right there, right?

BEFORE WATCHMEN: MINUTEMEN #1 (DC)

The big controversy here is that someone other than Alan Moore, and without his consent, is playing in the Watchmen sandbox.  This is being viewed as a violation of creator rights, mostly because everyone really loves WATCHMEN (but not the movie, which I always found odd, because the movie rocks).  MINUTEMEN is the first of several mini-series, and is handled by nostalgia-rich Darwyn Cooke.  It concerns the first generation of heroes envisioned by Moore, essentially the golden age, the birth of superheroes, and narrated by Hollis Mason, the original Night-Owl and author of the fictional UNDER THE HOOD autobiography that served to give the original story its first measure of authenticity, the quality that everyone dances around when speaking about WATCHMEN.  At heart, the story of the Watchmen is about weaving a self-contained world where everything makes sense, even the bits that get swept under the rug, and so it’s about perspective.  It’s always seemed odd to me that fans of WATCHMEN seem to utterly lack perspective, including Moore himself, a man so steeped in his own favorite memories that he barely seems to exist in the present.  Cooke is very much like that, but like his art style, he’s far more whimsical about it.  Perhaps it’s because he exists to play in not just other people’s sandboxes but their memories as well, that he serves as the perfect introduction to the BEFORE WATCHMEN project, which seeks to expand the narrative back to the characters and not just their story, because as Moore so cleverly demonstrated in the first place, without them the story couldn’t exist.  He already took the liberty of modifying the creations of others to reach that point in the first place.  Now we get to see how strong his own creations were.

EARTH 2 #2 (DC)

Years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Mart Nodell, creator of Alan Scott.  He was a gracious man who didn’t mind signing comics that featured Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner, even though they had nothing to do with his Green Lantern.  I’m thinking he would have been fine with a little reinvention of his own character.  You may have heard by now that James Robinson made Green Lantern gay.  This is no surprise on the part of Robinson, who’s incorporated gay characters in his other comics, and was made as an official press release only days before this issue was published, just to allay, or at least moderate, the reaction.  The whole EARTH 2 series is about redefining a whole generation of superheroes, some of the oldest in comics, by ironically making them once again the successors of Superman and Batman.  Robinson has handled it beautifully so far, with the second issue better than the first, with more time to explore his brave new world.  The character on the cover is Jay Garrick, the original Flash, now endowed with the powers of Mercury but an inexperienced hothead (like a certain Bart Allen!), and it’s not until the third issue that Alan Scott is supposed to steal the spotlight.  He’s already been cast as a key figure in the narrative, shaping the public reaction to the aftermath of a parallel version of what happened in the first handful of JUSTICE LEAGUE issues, where events turned tragic and created a bleak (brave?) new world with awesome consequences.  So he also happens to be gay.  Some observers are saying it’s convenient, that he’s an alternate version in his own pocket world, but I don’t think Robinson ever had the media in mind when he made his decision.  Oh, well, it’s just that much easier to ignore if that’s easier for you.  Except you’ll be missing out on a great read.

THE SUMMER OF SPIDER-MAN/ WOLVERINE: SABRETOOTH REBORN (Marvel)

This is another of those free preview flipbooks, showcasing a bunch of upcoming Spider-Man stories as well as the latest from Jeph Loeb.  The Spidey previews are a little awkward.  First there’s something from Dan Slott’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that involves the Lizard but has no relation to the upcoming movie.  It paints a pretty generic portrait of the Lizard and leaves anything human out of the picture.  Is that really the point of the character?  Then there’s SPIDER-MEN, from Brian Michael Bendis, a crossover between the regular wallcrawler and is Ultimate doppelganger, who happens to be Miles Morales these days.  The only problem is this excerpt is generic Peter Parker bemoaning his life, and only begins to suggest what will actually happen in the book.  This goes on for pages.  Finally there’s AVENGING SPIDER-MAN that’s supposed to sell you on the new, female Captain Marvel, but ends up doing a far better job for a character who doesn’t even technically have a name yet.  Get that girl her own book!  On the other side, Loeb and artist Simone Bianchi talk about their new Sabretooth project (they previously collaborated on WOLVERINE: EVOLUTION).  I wish Loeb hadn’t gotten so skittish about working with Tim Sale, but it seems these Wolverine tales are in that same basic tradition, character-rich stories that are probably worth checking out, even though they’re on the fringe of continuity.

WASTELAND #38 (Oni)

At this point Justin Greenwood has nicely settled in as the new artist of the book, and Antony Johnston is free to dive back into the mythology of the story, finally explaining the deal with Gerr, the assassin sent by Lord Founder Marcus of Newbegin to dispatch Michael and Abi, but only after they find A-Ree-Yass-I, fabled oasis of the Big Wet, the apocalypse that led to our little wasteland.  The bigger news is that next issue we may actually learn more about Marcus, Michael, and Abi, who share superhuman abilities, including the inability to age, that has kept them youthful for some hundred years.  But that’s next issue.  This issue finally provides closure to at least one long-standing arc in the series: Gerr has loomed as a threat over Michael and Abi for some twenty issues now (ever since BOOK 3: BLACK STEEL IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS, to be precise).  This is what THE WALKING DEAD should be like.