To say last week was disappointing for a comic book addict like me would be an understatement. This is not to say that there nothing worth reading, but nothing that interested me, nothing from my pull list and, well, nothing else that I wanted to read.
So this week was an embarrassment of riches. Very good (or very bad) for a comics addict. I ended up reading a bunch of stuff I hadn't read previously, or continuing to read stuff that I don't typically read, or enjoyed a bunch of new stuff, and of course a bunch of stuff I've been reading all along.
Kicking off is Batman #42 (DC), the second issue of the Bat Gordon era. Visually the costume in full armor still looks and will always look ridiculous, and Gordon's military haircut looks ridiculous, but...this is still the best Batman Snyder has ever written. It's the first time he's allowed himself full control, and it shows. The fact that astute readers knew Bruce Wayne was never dead, and Snyder has shown every willingness to play along, keeping him in every issue "post-death," including the issue with "his death" after "his death," this is what I've been waiting for. This is an exercise in patience. Obviously this is an exception, and if it hadn't been hugely popular from the start, DC would never have stuck around this long. But thankfully this is an instance where popularity eventually gives way to material justifying the hype. I don't know how popular this material will be, in the short- or long-term, but I have to imagine, however much longer Snyder sticks around, he will be back to writing Bruce Wayne as Batman, and will be the better for having this experience under his belt.
It's also clear that the villain concept was in part an excuse for Capullo to do a version of Clayface after discovering how well he does it visually in Batman #20 (excellent cover). I would have maybe capitalized on the horn concept and named the villain Horn (although I guess there are other members of the gang, so there's always a chance, right?).
And even with surprises, such as Bloodsquirt. Kind of like Bloodshot's Bat-Mite, Bloodsquirt is part of the hallucinations Bloodshot is experiencing as he tries to deal with his situation (the other person he sees is the woman responsible for taking away his powers, but in this scenario, unlike House of M's Scarlet Witch, the late Geomancer was a good guy who was very much Bloodshot's friend, which is why she did what she did, right before she died). The nanites, meanwhile, that previously gave Bloodshot his powers have been infecting other people, and he's able to absorb them back when he finds these people. Anyway, the whole thing is pretty fascinating, and executed perfectly. I'm once again glad that Valiant exists, and that I've found my way in.
This is written by Charles Soule. When his exclusive contract with Marvel was originally announced, I conceived of it as a nightmare scenario, not because I had enjoyed his DC work so much, but because I feared Marvel wouldn't know what to do with him. But as it turns out, that wasn't really the case at all. If anything, he might be perfectly suited at Marvel, where he can use his best instincts to bring out Marvel's best instincts. This is in fact a best case scenario. At DC he was for the most part marginalized. At Marvel he has the opportunity to become the company's next signature writer, succeeding Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman. I would be very happy to see that happen.
Civil War, then, is a kind of audition. I mean, arguably all of these Secret Wars spin-offs are auditions, either for talent or for the continuing viability of old concepts. In that, Marvel again has an edge over DC. With Convergence, DC was letting fans know once again (and I do mean once again) that it hasn't forgotten its own history, but it was never going to revive anything. DC is always looking forward, aggressively, often to the detriment of fans who want desperately to cling to the past. Marvel isn't like that. It's often just as merciless as DC when it chooses to change things, but it usually goes out of its way to assure fans that things are going to be okay (unless you're a mutant). Anyway, it's always trying to do things organically, whereas DC is that pesky genetic engineering that everyone has such a passive-aggressive relationship with.
All that's to say, Civil War, and Soule along with it, is once again a fascinating concept. The problem Marvel has, despite all its virtues (and I'm convinced Marvel fans celebrate the virtues and ignore everything else, on the whole), is that most of the time, once it's come up with an idea it really has no idea what to do with it. The idea eventually, inevitably, peters out, or mutates so many times that it become irrelevant.
What Soule accomplishes here, as he usually does, is succeed in once again grounding the original idea without losing sight of how to once again progress it. The original hook of the original Civil War is played out to its logical conclusions, going full American Civil War by creating separate nations: The Iron, which obviously is led by Tony Stark, and The Blue, which is led by Steve Rogers. Perhaps with the less comic booky version of Captain America's assassination (otherwise, the opposite of what Brubaker chose to do) in the original in mind, Soule has an attempt by Stark and Rogers to negotiate sabotaged by a gunshot. This Civil War is not dominated by meaningless battles between superheroes, but as a true war of ideology (which is what Kingdom Come was so good at depicting, but more on Mark Waid later).
It's also nice to see Leinil Francis Yu at work again. He's been a signature Marvel artist for years. Linking Yu and Soule is hopefully symbolic of past and future. Although they could certainly continue working together.
And we learn this through the most grisly means possible. I guess I haven't read enough Lemire to know how typical this is for him, but as far as Dustin Nguyen goes, I wouldn't have expected it, certainly not in his current mode of looking about as innocent as a comic book can, especially with killer robots running amok (although Driller, who is a Killer, can run amok as much as he wants, as far as I am concerned).
Which is to say, Dr. Quon is tortured, in the most direct way possible: a buzz saw is used to amputate his left hand. Without no warning, mind you!
So Descender continues to surprise, and this is a very good thing, for a series that is proving more and more that what Saga started, other can and might actually do better. Which is something fans of Saga probably never expected in a million years, let alone less than a handful of them. (Luckily, ah, Dr. Quon still has a hand to grab things with. But he won't be clapping again any time soon...)
One has the sense that IDW, and Chris Ryall, totally got that Adams was always a guy interested in nutty concepts and great dialogue, because that's what's to be found here, unabashedly.
And for those keeping score, I offered the theory in my review of the previous issue, which had never occurred to me before (because I hadn't given much thought to Adams's past) that Dirk Gently is another Doctor Who figure for his creator. And the guys behind the comic seem to think so, too, because (and I can't name which one, because I'm not nearly as big a fan of Doctor Who as I am Douglas Adams) at one point Dirk dons a hat and looks the spitting image of one of the regenerations of Doctor Who.
So there's that.
Traditionalists, purists, and other such individuals would probably have preferred the Justice Society of America concept to remain exactly as it was originally conceived, which is what the Justice League continues to represent. And I think Geoff Johns pushed the original vision as far as it could go. So, much like the Silver Age gave birth to a new Green Lantern and a new Flash, the same has been done for the Justice Society.
Here's where it truly begins to pay off, because now there is a society, and it's as literal as you can possibly get (in a good way), a whole society defined by the superheroes at its heart, survivors of an obliterated Earth. And now we see what transpires next. Terry Sloan, the original Mr. Terrific, has been transformed into a leader of questionable ethics manipulating events to his benefit. I think there was some resistance to this previously, but at any rate I wasn't reading that material, and as presented here it works wonderfully, and he's in a situation that fully exploits his potential. The same, hopefully, will be true of all the characters, including Dick Grayson as Batman. This is a series that is going to take its time unfolding the story, and two issues in that's definitely what's been happening. There are more introductions this issue, oddly enough, which might as well mean anyone who was reluctant to give it a try before has another opportunity to come aboard.
Because this is suddenly some of the best comics around. Good storytelling, great art (and I liked Jorge Jimenez's work instantly last issue), and builds on a concept that is becoming better and better all the time.
This time, however, Moore seems to be interested in what might actually be his true legacy: creating comics that attempt to be as literally the embodiment of the term "graphic novel" as you can get. While fans might know him for Watchmen or Batman: The Killing Joke, Moore is also known for V for Vendetta and From Hell, both of which are very much relevant to any discussion of Providence. When he tells a superhero story, Moore is able to disguise or even distort his best instincts. But elsewhere he can't. Even the Guy Fawkes mask can't obscure his real interests. I have this theory that Moore is actually ambivalent about the comic book medium, or at least superheroes, whatever possibilities they might have, because for him they're nothing but memories he formed decades ago. When he tells a story about superheroes, it is about them, not with them. Later, with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he did tell stories with them, but superheroes of a different kind. The difference is often hard to reconcile.
Anyway, Moore is interested in telling stories about characters interested in what he is. Providence is a story of the occult, but in the way Stoker's original Dracula was, as something that's stumbled into like The Blair Witch Project. This is the second issue, mind you, and I didn't read the first, but I'm not sure how much story I missed because of that. The Alan Moore that exists today will never again have the impact he did in the '80s. I don't know how he feels about that, but I think he's becoming comfortable with that. In the '90s he was still trying to recapture what he'd lost by abandoning DC. Providence might be the first time he's tried to move past that, return to what he once was, before superheroes dominated his legacy. So if you're interested in that, you might be interested in Providence.
As for me, I found it interested if sedate. If there must be irreconcilable differences between fans of Alan Moore and fans of Grant Morrison, this is what you would compare, say, Annihilator against. And as different as the approaches are, for me there is no comparison. Give me Morrison and Annihilator any day of the week. Providence, meanwhile, glimpses for a moment the world Morrison's Nameless exists in. Considering that I wish Nameless were a little less lunatic, maybe Providence actually represents the bridge that might still exist between them...
The issue also presents a "season finale," which is something I hope future trades will help distinguish (ideally, I guess I'm arguing, there would be distinct collections for each "season," which is to say the material that exists between hiatuses). For some time now, the story of Alana and Marko has been defined by their being apart. They finally stumble back into each other's company.
The other major thing is that our helpful narrator Hazel once again reveals something major about what the future looks like, which in this instance (it hasn't always been as artful) is a very good thing, with excellent timing (which is another reason why I think the "season finale" concept should be better emphasized): she won't be returning to mommy and daddy any time soon.
In a way, Saga is taking on the feel of Lost (which Vaughan worked on), recognizing the inherent drama of reunions between characters who have complicated relationships with each other. For me, this is another very good thing. Sometimes I struggle to see what exactly Saga hopes to accomplish. As of now, this is my conclusion, and I'm happy with that.
I want Costa to do the kind of material I love Costa doing, but that's just not happening with G.I. Joe. I liked Avengers: Millennium, saw the potential to get close to what I wanted, so I decided to give Spider-Verse a shot. And it seems to be even closer than Avengers: Millennium. As you may or may not know, Spider-Verse means the Spider-Man version of DC's multiverse, endless variations of the character. The most famous one recently isn't of Spider-Man himself, but his dead lover Gwen Stacy, who is officially known as Spider-Gwen, and apparently wildly popular. She's more or less the lead of this issue, too. Costa has figured out how to present these characters in a group the way he normally does individually in his Cobra stories, focusing on their varying perspectives. This I was glad to see.
What's great is that it also gives me a chance to read a good issue of two properties that aren't currently giving me much in that regard. (As always, I provide the John Byrne caveat; because my local shop doesn't regularly stock his work, I don't have a chance to read it regularly, unless I wanted to go the digital route.) I haven't read IDW's Star Trek work with any regularity in a few years, and more often than not discover that I'm not missing much. Robert Venditti's Green Lantern, meanwhile, is much the same.
This issue takes place in IDW's favorite Star Trek sandbox at the moment, stories set in the Abrams reboot era. I think it's a mistake to routinely feature Kirk's Enterprise adventures at a time when new movies are still being produced. Once in a while is fine. I think there's much more valuable opportunity looking around the corners, which is what IDW used to do, even in the Abrams era. Anyway, but that's exactly what this comic is doing, too, except with Green Lantern.
Or more accurately, the corpse of Ganthet. That's a wonderful image. With all the times the Guardians have been slaughtered over the years, I never imagined such an image would be so impactful, but there you are. Until Hal Jordan (presumably) shows up on the final page, there isn't even anything to worry about time-wise. Ganthet could easily have lived to Kirk's time (the Guardian's are the universe's oldest beings in DC speak). He brought the last rings across the whole spectrum (red, yellow, blue, violet, orange, and indigo) created or embellished by Geoff Johns, and as Kirk's crew examines the corpse and the rings, the comic has ample opportunity to let the reader enjoy the Abrams era for what it is, a distinct version of familiar Star Trek.
Again, I have no idea what the next issue does to affect the continuing viability of the concept, but so far so good...
As I've mentioned repeatedly, I had great misgivings when Soule went exclusive to Marvel. His Red Lanterns was the work that made me a fan of Soule, and I didn't want to see it end. (Well, DC ended it anyway, in the end.) When I saw Lando announced, with Soule as writer, I saw it as the best chance to see Soule in the mode I knew best from him.
Turns out it's better than that. Never mind what I already said about Soule above, this one's better than I could have imagined. It not only features Lando, which is obvious, but takes him in new and unexpected directions. Now, I'm about to reference Lost again. Unlike a lot of fans, my affection for it not only didn't go away after the way it ended, but was actually amplified by it. I loved the whole final season, in fact. This is relevant, because in Soule's mind, Lando is something of a Sawyer, a con man who given the chance could absolutely go straight. When we meet Lando in Empire Strikes Back, that's exactly what happened to him, but the Lando we meet is difficult to imagine as anything else. I read and enjoyed the L. Neil Smith books, too, but they were part of the whole thing that suggested if Lando had ever been any different, he was basically Han Solo.
Which is not very imaginative. Given a chance, Han would never have become an administrator. But Lando loves a good con, because a con is basically an opportunity, and that's what con men love. As a con man, Lando suddenly makes perfect sense. And his Cloud City buddy Lobot becomes fully alive in the comic, too, plus a number of nefarious associates that make it seem just as if Star Wars: Lando is the first time anyone really tried to do additional Star Wars material. Because this is exactly what Star Wars was always meant to be.
And so why care about Lando at all? I liked him because he really wasn't involved in Luke's adventures. Other than snatching Luke from that weathervane, if you think about it Lando really has nothing to do with him in his two movie appearances. But this doesn't stop him from being, arguably the most confident man in the room, even when he quickly realizes he's got to switch allegiances. That deal he strikes with Vader turned out to be a bad idea. So he flips. He's the only character to do that, too. Han, if you'll remember, spends most of his time actively trying to avoid entanglements. That's what he had in common with the old Lando. He didn't see the opportunity Luke represented even though it was staring him in the face. He came back because he grew to care about the boy. Not Lando.
All of which is to say there was always unexplored potential in Lando. As of now, there's less. Or, more.
Whereas Alex Ross has been trying to recapture his Kingdom Come glory ever since (just as the project itself was originally embraced as "the next Alex Ross project" after Marvels, which Kurt Busiek followed up with the similar Astro City), Waid seems to have been incredibly reluctant, which is probably because initially he didn't understand what he'd accomplished. Before Kingdom Come, Waid was a fan who became an editor who got to write The Flash and then anything else he wanted. But along the way, he had the opportunity to do something big, Kingdom Come. Even though fans (like me) claim the best of his Flash was incredibly hard to surpass, that's exactly what he did. He set the bar higher than anyone could have imagined, and I think like Waid himself, everyone has been struggling to catch up with it.
This was transcendent material, for Waid, for superheroes, and in some ways, comic books in general. Snooty fans won't even take superhero writers seriously, will try and create mainstream credentials by being anything but. What Waid realized was that this wasn't by any means necessary. But having someone like Alex Ross around to make it visually distinctive would probably help.
Here he was J.G. Jones, whose most visually distinctive work previously was on the landmark covers of the weekly series 52, which are among the rare covers to get their own collection. Jones has gone to some trouble to evoke Alex Ross, but where Ross tends to be minimalist, Jones sketches in the rest.
Otherwise the rest is entirely Waid. The only other times he's invoked Kingdom Come was to try and recapture the scope of superhero storytelling, which resulted in lesser works like The Kingdom and the Irredeemable/Incorruptible universe. Strange Fruit is nothing like that. And considering the charged nature of race relations, and even the status of the Confederate flag (interested observers can make much of the issue's final image on that score), it's beyond timely. It's timeless in the best Kingdom Come manner. It's Waid coming home to Boom!, yes, but it's also Waid coming to terms with a part of his legacy he has finally come to embrace, a challenge he set aside and has returned to at last.
At its heart, Strange Fruit is a variation on Superman. It even evokes Django Unchained. But it is distinctly its own, too. It looks at politics, too, by the way, but at its heart is a social landscape at turmoil with itself, trying to come up with easy answers and finding that to be a difficult task. And suddenly, there's this black man standing there, tearing the whole scene asunder, come to Earth like Superman, in a rocket that crashes in a field, but this is a full-grown man.
Who and what he is are matters for the three remaining issues. I highly recommend you investigate the results for yourself. And welcome back, Mark Waid. It's been a long time.
It's hard to take RoboGordon seriously with those stupid bunny ears. Didn't anyone at DC think before they released promotional images and the like that it looked kinda dumb?
ReplyDeleteI loved Kingdom Come, so I guess that's one where we actually agree.