Quarter Bin 87 "Back to Automatic Kafka, and more from recent back issues blitzes"

Automatic Kafka #3, 4, 5, 9 (WildStorm)
From November & December 2002, January and July 2003
Joe Casey's comic caught my eye in previous rummaging through back issue bins, so I figured I'd read more of it.  Thankfully, #9 is the final issue and adequately explains what the hell he was doing with the rest of it.  Basically this was a post-modern superhero comic, in the tradition of Wasteland and Grant Morrison's Animal Man (Casey liberally appears in the final issue, speaking directly to Kaf and the reader), from the more cynical perspective of early millennium superhero comics, which had been turned on their head by stuff like The Authority, which would give birth to The Ultimates and somewhat strangely, the Marvel movies we all enjoy now, which are on the whole far less concerned with taking superheroes seriously than the comics that spawned them.  It's classic satire, the Kafkaesque version, if you will, of Loeb & Sale's formative collaboration in The Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!, a previous big find in the back issue bins recorded in previous editions of this column.

Black Magick #1 (Image)
From October 2015
Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott are past and present Wonder Woman creators.  Their pasts previously aligned in this series about a magic practitioner who's also a cop, which is kind of luck summarizing and simplifying Charmed.  Figured I'd finally have a look.

Blackhawks #2, 3, 4 (DC)
From December 2011, January & February 2012
As a huge Mike Costa fan...when he's writing his brilliant G.I. Joe/Cobra stories over at IDW, I always like to check in on his other stuff.  When the New 52 was announced, I was automatically intrigued at his Blackhawks, but then financial restraints got in the way and I was only able to check back in well after the fact.  This is the second such time I've read some of it, and I'm far more impressed now than the last time.  The big beef I had the last time was that I didn't really get the Mike Costa feel, that in having to create a whole team right off the bat, he didn't have the chance to dazzle with an intense single-character drama, like he did at IDW.  Well, I stand corrected, and even more curiously, the passage of time and further comics experience informs me that his Blackhawks reads like a preview of Valiant's current Bloodshot comics.  So I will definitely make a better effort at reading the complete short-lived run in the future.

Cairo sneak preview (Vertigo)
This graphic novel was G. Willow Wilson's comics debut, originally released in November 2007.  I later became hugely enamored with Wilson through Air, while other readers made her Ms. Marvel a leading member of Marvel's new generation.  I've always wanted to read Cairo (which is also Wilson's first collaboration with Air artist M.K. Perker), and so this teaser is a pretty good start.

Global Frequency #12 (WildStorm)
From August 2004
Thanks to Transmetropolitan and later works (such as the aforementioned Authority), Warren Ellis became known as one of the most progressive writers in comics (I dubbed his Supreme: Blue Rose as a landmark work).  Global Frequency was one of the several projects from the same general period that helped solidify his reputation.  At least in this final issue, it's a terrifying vision of government population measures.  I think I've read it before.  Didn't hurt to read it again.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Book 1 (DC)
From 1993
I've long wanted to have a look at DC's adaptation of Douglas Adams' classic story of Arthur Dent's terrifying vision of government population measures (heh).  For now, I'll have to settle with this first installment, featuring very, very '90s art.  No, not the Image kind.  What everyone else had when all the Image artists went to Image, or were employed in Marvel and DC books desperately trying to look like Image books.  If that helps.

Inferno #2 (DC)
From November 1997
I've read the complete mini-series before, but I wanted to have another look (those issues were lost in one of the purges).  This was Stuart Immonen's writer/artist tryout, I think, for DC, before he was allowed to assume the same responsibilities in his Superman comics.  His Inferno is a good reminder that there's a whole set of young readers who read comics because they identify with the human qualities these characters can exhibit, not the desperate attempts to be cool that some companies began to think were necessary to find them.  It's yet another example of the timelessness of Immonen's work, and why it's sad he's never really gotten another chance since that time to explore this side of comics.

Nova #3 (Marvel)
From March 2016
Ah...bad timing, Nova.  Because this latest incarnation of the Jeph Loeb vision for the character is the opposite everything I just talked about...

Our Love is Real (Image)
With his sensational work in Green Lanterns recently, I've gotten more aware of the name Sam Humphries, so when I saw this one-shot, I figured I really should have a look.  It's kind of a shameless parody of sexual diversity, and the artist draw sideburns like Howard Chaykin.  That's all I'll say about that!

Resistance #6 (WildStorm)
From July 2009
Here's Mike Costa again, doing another military comic, only this time it's based on a video game.  But it's excellent Costa material all the same.

Starman #6 (DC)
From January 1989
The Will Payton Starman, like the rest of them, popped up in James Robinson's later Starman series.  Here will is very much at the start of his career, and in the thick of the "Invasion" crossover arc, and contending with the Power Elite  But more on superhero Elites in a moment...

Action Comics #775 (DC)
From March 2001
The introduction of Manchester Black was one of those legendary events from early millennium Superman comics, and I always wanted to catch up with it.  Here was a character meant to help explain what makes Superman continually relevant, because he reflects all the violent tendencies that had been cropping up since the likes of Alan Moore and Frank Miller complicated such things.  This was a whole era in Superman comics dedicated to making him cool again, which really wouldn't work until Superman/Batman (somewhat ironically).  At the end of this issue, Joe Kelly makes him looks like he's stooped to Black's level, but then cleverly explains how he didn't, while still making Superman look pretty badass.  Black's Elites, who starred in a twelve-issue Justice League Elite, were another response to Ellis's work.

Superman: Last Son of Krypton FCBD
From 2013
This is the first issue in the Geoff Johns/Richard Donner run, that reads as well now as it did when originally published. 

We Stand on Guard #4 (Image)
From October 2015
Brian K. Vaughan is one of the guys who formed his reputation in the years following Ellis's dominance in the progressive movement, and in recent years he's been doing some even edgier stuff.  We Stand on Guard is a curious little thing, in that it tackles America's current reputation from the perspective of a future war with Canada.  It totally makes sense if you ignore the fact that Canada and the United States have generally been okay with each other since the unfortunate business of the war of 1812 and the business of trying to add Canada to the rest of America...

Ultimate X-Men #7 (Marvel)
From August 2001
Mark Millar explores the Ultimate version of Weapon X.  Predictably edgy outlook.