Halloween ComicFest 2018
Here's another free comics event, one I haven't really participated in as enthusiastically as, well, Free Comic Book Day, mostly because, well FCBD is a legit phenomenon and this isn't. It's just an excuse for some free comics! Not that there's a problem with that sort of thing, right? Of course, participating publishers also have a kind of themed mandate with this one where they don't on FCBD. As such, it was far harder, and conversely far easier, to make selections. I ended up with just two, DC/Vertigo's John Constantine: Hellblazer special edition and Marvel's Thor: Road to War of the Realms. I wasn't really interested in anything else (not even anything particularly relevant to snag for my three-year-old niece, alas), though I hemmed and hawed, because free comics, yo.
Obviously DC was most interested in selling the Vertigo brand itself, and Constantine is as reliable a selling point, as signature an element, as Vertigo ever had, sort of the last crayon in the box by the end, absorbed into DC proper eventually but never really feeling at home there. I mean, the whole concept was built for the original Vertigo mandate of the creepy fringe elements. I never really got into the character, mostly because he seemed to be used mostly as an excuse, a vehicle, more than for whatever he specifically brought to the table, or that his fans were not particularly vocal about his selling points. I mean, the concept, which became a Keanu Reeves movie at one point, and then a short-lived TV series and then featured player in another show. This issue was written by Neil Gaiman, who does Neil Gaiman at his most vague. What always made Gaiman's instincts work so well in the pages of Sandman was that it was always grounded in real human pathos. There's an attempt made in the story, but Constantine is inherently uninterested in what's most interesting in Gaiman's best material. And I'm not really much of a horror for horror's sake kind of reader. So anyway, still haven't figured out the guy's appeal, or waiting for a writer like Lemire, in the pages of I, Vampire, to figure out how to draw him out of his shell. What he needs is other characters to consistently react against.
The Thor issue was part of Jason Aaron's sprawling run, apparently somewhere near the beginning (third out of twelve volumes helpfully spelled out in the back pages). What's most annoying about Thor as a character, to me, is that he's so often, certainly in Aaron's hands, entirely limited to Asgardian business. It's like Aquaman only concerned with Atlantis court intrigue. You need to remember that this is a character who will thrive best as a fish out of water, not forever thrust in alienating context.
Anyway...
Batman #57
Tom King's latest successful outrage magnet was hobbling Nightwing (more on that in a moment) in the midst of a mini-arc with the KGBeast. I was perfectly okay with this for any number of reasons. One is that he previously made a very early career mark with the Beast in the pages of his seminal Grayson: Futures End, which of course featured Nightwing, years before King wrote an issue of Batman. Another is that this arc instantly further elevates the Beast's credibility by placing him, basically, at the same level as Bane, who in King's hands has finally reached his full "Knightfall" potential. And as he has so often demonstrated, King used this moment for another excellent character study.
But let's move on to...
Between Ben Percy and Scott Lobdell, this is the start of a bold new era for Dick Grayson. Another bold new era. This is a character who has defined bold new eras in DC. Fans like to slake their need for nerd outrage by claiming Dan DiDio has long had it ought for Nightwing, but...the results? They kind of suggest the character has blossomed as never before under DiDio's watch. Whether it was in the pages of the New 52 Nightwing, where he was consistently presented as relevant to Scott Snyder's Batman, which never happened in the long-running first Nightwing ongoing (which went on for a hundred and fifty issues, no less), or the bold new era of his exposed secret identity, which led to the spy adventures of Grayson, which by the way introduced readers to Tom King, the character has had it good. For a character almost as old as DC itself, who went from a kid sidekick to growing up and claiming his own identity, who had his own team built around him, these have all been milestone events not just for Nightwing but DC and superhero comics in general.
So quit complaining already.
This time it's "merely" a story where he's temporarily forgotten all about having ever been Nightwing, Robin, any of that. As if that's going to last. In the meantime, there are going to be entirely new Dick Grayson stories. That's always a good thing. Too often, Nightwing stories are most worried about distinguishing him from Batman. And just as often, a new creative team becomes obsessed with returning the character to his roots. Somehow Kyle Higgins was the first one to do so as literally as taking him back to Haly's Circus.
Which means letting him experience something that's not comparing him to Batman or harking back to some previous era (which is not to say material that's done this hasn't been very good) or setting him up in some new territory...This is, once again, a great time to be a fan of Nightwing. That's the bottom line here, folks. And Percy and Lobdell in these issues prove they're capable of making it interesting, and good reading.
Walmart 3-Packs
Ah! So I've continued reading the latest DC gifts to Wallyworld, the 100-page giants, and while I wish I'd been talking about the King and Bendis tales now unfolding in them here, it's always fun to revisit the 3-packs that still haven't sold out and were trotted out when the giants' display boxes went up. So I started buying them again, of course, because someone has to...
Batman #1, 25, 34 - These are all from the New 52, and were fun to read. I was never the biggest fan of Scott Snyder's much-acclaimed and -read run, but I appreciated what it was doing. And the funny thing is, I always seem to enjoy reading it, too. The twenty-fifth was a "Zero Year" issue, while the thirty-fourth was written by Gerry Duggan, who later took his talents to Marvel (where the state of its zombies is such that they have no idea Duggan is a great talent they ought to be appreciating). It's a great issue.
Batman Eternal #1 - The start, all over again, of the weekly series that sort of allowed Snyder (and a host of collaborators) to play in the established sandbox a little more than he allowed himself in the main series. I'm still surprised that there's so little appreciation for the results.
Green Lantern Corps #34 - John Stewart is still trying to deal with the fact that he let a planet die in Cosmic Odyssey. It's just one of those late-80s things that has a longer shelf life than necessary. But it also gives Kyle Rayner-era villain Fatality more stories, and weaves into the complicated nature of the expanded spectrum. Good GL mythology snapshot (for an issue with a "selfie variant cover," ironically or not).
Trinity of Sin: Pandora - Futures End
Pandora is that signature New 52 character who kind of helped lead the charge of disappointment for fans, who ultimately found her underwhelming despite a massive amount of hype. But the funny thing is, and I'm pretty sure I've now read this issue through the acquisition of several copies enough times for it to finally sink in, that the fate of the New 52 era is spelled out, how it always seemed destined to lead to DC Rebirth. Because as far as this issue is concerned, apparently that was always the purpose of Pandora. Never mind how Geoff Johns later had Doctor Manhattan unceremoniously obliterate her, a kind of symbolic gesture on the whole New 52 era. Or maybe even that was intentional. Most fans are never going to care. But Pandora deserves a better fate.
I remember reading the first volume of Constantine or Hellblazer or whatever it was first called and not thinking a lot of it. I think you're right that he needs someone to play off of.
ReplyDeleteThey already had Dick Grayson publicly unmasked and become a slightly more competent Sterling Archer but now we get "Ric Grayson" running around a red scarf and baseball bat short of looking like Negan until inevitably he gets his memory back. Amnesia is just another of those soap opera cliches comics like to use. I suppose next he'll have an evil twin--if he hasn't already.
It's not so much the amnesia as Dick getting the first chance...ever? to reconsider his life as a costumed crimefighter, something he's seemed to take absolutely for granted, for the most part, since first accepting the domino mask as a kid. His short stint as an agent of Spyral is really the only comparable experience, other than when he first became Nightwing.
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