Back in the day the Secret Files comics were more or less updates of the old Who's Who files, and they were more or less excuses to hype upcoming events in a particular series or family of books. They also contained short stories and other throwaway materials like diagrams and timelines, all of it fun little celebratory stuff. But in the final analysis, you could probably skip them. Some readers complained when they saw this updated take, which includes...nothing but storytelling. Why even call it Secret Files? But if I may...repurposing a title is perfectly fine, especially in an era that really doesn't have any other space for the kind of stories that appear in it. It's like a one-shot Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, or Batman: Confidential.
The lead is written by Tom King. It can be interpreted as a cheap way to get Batman thinking about the past, or as another way King ruminates on the cumulative toll being of Batman. Then a bunch of new creators have a shot at exploring Gotham, and that's pretty awesome. Ram V and Jorge Fornes set the tone nicely with a Brubakeresque tale of a cop who was caught in the crossfire of Scarecrow's latest caper, and can't shake the effects of his fear gas. Cheryl Lynn Eaton and Elena Casagrande offer fairly similar material, although they have a lot more space for Batman, and leave a lot more ambiguity to the aftereffects of a girl on the street being forced to defend herself with a gun. Jordie Bellaire and Jill Thompson help Batman spend time with himself, waiting to find out what Man-Bat's up to, and for someone like Batman that's almost as bad as confronting Man-Bat right away...Finally, Tom Taylor and Brad Walker revisit Dark Night: Metal's take on Detective Chimp as Batman acknowledges his skills and they try to help a former Riddler goon. It's a great collection of stories and showcase for these creators. Anyone who's begun to wonder whether King's the only creator outside of Detective Comics DC's willing to entertain in Batman comics should definitely check it out.
Batman #59 (DC)
After we learned that the Batwedding didn't happen thanks to Bane's manipulations, it was only a matter of time before Batman once again clashed with one of his most famous foes. This issue, solicited as part of Batman's unlikely team-up with the Penguin, is really all about Bane driving a wedge between Batman and Commissioner Gordon by pretending to be a vegetative inmate of Arkham, and even allowing the ruse to reach the point where Batman himself questions his conclusions. In the long run this will prove a highly crucial issue. Mikel Janin's art has apparently reached an evolution, meanwhile. He's begun taking on a more stylized approach as opposed to his cleaner look previously.
Green Lanterns #57 (DC)
The final issue of the series, Dan Jurgens completes a short run with another look at Cyborg Superman and whether or not his threat will ever be concluded, this time in the context of what he famously did during "Reign of the Supermen" to Coast City, and what effect that had on Hal Jordan. But the series ends with Jessica Cruz deciding to once and for all leave her comfort zone, and Earth!
The Green Lantern #1 (DC)
It's here! Grant Morrison is now writing the adventures of Hal Jordan! And of course, once again, he's managed to approach his subject as no one else has before! After more than a decade of storytelling dominated by the big ideas of Geoff Johns, Morrison grounds Hal back in a more personal context. In interviews he's described it as putting the focus on the effect Hal's life as Green Lantern has on him, which is something previous decades used to do all the time, how he went through a whole series of civilian jobs because he couldn't hold anything of them and have a power ring's responsibilities at the same time. And also the mundane oddities of being a space cop! Liam Sharp (I hate the composition of the cover image, which was available in poster form at the new location of Comics & Stuff, which I declined to accept on that basis, even though it would've otherwise been a great thing to celebrate on a wall) is great in the interiors, bringing a bright new vividness to Green Lantern. All I can say is, wow! Never expected this to happen, but am very, very pleased that it has, and that Morrison is clearly bringing all his celebrated wild imagination to it!
Heroes in Crisis #2 (DC)
A lot of fans have obsessed over the fact that Wally West died in the first issue. I just don't know how to make sense of that. Wally just returned. He's been gone for years! But...he just returned! You really think he can't, I don't know, do that again? Really? But we live in outrage culture these days. You really would think we'd never seen anything at all before.
Anyway, the idea of Booster Gold and Harley Quinn on the run, suspected of the massacre at Sanctuary, it's great, and it's a totally new story, and Booster and Harley are great choices as leads. Booster hasn't truly been relevant since 52 (anyone with even a fleeting grasp of my favorite comics knows how much I love 52, of which you can find an annotated commentary right here at Thought Bubble Comics). It's also crazy to think, and also funny that DC's event comics have slowed down so much, that since she became a significant corner of the DCU during the New 52 era, Harley has never been in this position before. This is acknowledging the changing landscape. This is helping legitimize Harley. I get that there's a certain style of Harley storytelling that's been the standard over the years, but allowing her to be seen in different ways, in more dramatic ways, in an important step in solidifying Harley's legacy.
The end of King's epic mini-series (I also picked up a Director's Cut of the first issue, a rereading of which helped me understand this final issue) makes clear that the story was always about Scott Free coming to grips with life, basically, as a war veteran. It joins Omega Men and Sheriff of Babylon as a trilogy of King's experiences from the Iraq War, and as such an essential artifact of the modern era, in and outside of comics. Some readers, for any number of reasons, are just not going to be able to appreciate that. Fine. Good for them. Some of them are going to continue to look toward The Vision as King's definitive work, and Mister Miracle as a poor attempt to duplicate it for DC. A lot of them only discovered King through Vision. Having first encountered him as a solo creative voice in Omega Men, Vision for me was actually jarring, a slowed down version of what I already knew, impactful but at a scale that seemed small in comparison. Over the years I've come to appreciate Vision more, and have of course read a lot more King, and if anything, Mister Miracle helps put it in greater context. This is what he's been doing in the pages of Batman for three years. Just imagine if he'd done only twelve issues!
Nightwing #53 (DC)
What I liked about this latest installment of the amnesia saga was the cop who attempts to fill the Nightwing void. It's become a full-blown tradition for impostor Nightwings to pop up!
Adventures of the Super Sons #1-3 (DC)
With the dawn of Bendis Superman, Pete Tomasi was forced to vacate his space, and take his Superboy along with him, and also Robin, who he'd been bringing along since the last time he was asked to move on. This time he leaves with a huge parting gift! One grand adventure with Jon and Damian, and I think that's exactly the spirit of how he decided to approach this next generation World's Finest from the start. And just like that, his Superman has officially acquired its final context, just in case anyone was still wondering.
Wonder Woman #51-52 (DC)
I've spent a lot of time at the library over the past year reading comics. Most of them have been collected editions, but this particular branch also has a somewhat extensive collection of solo issues for Superman and Wonder Woman, which apparently began at the very end of the New 52, so that's how I ended up reading the majority of Tomasi's Superman, and how I eventually first read these two comics. The first was the one I definitely wanted to own. Steve Orlando's run is going to be more of a sprint, sandwiched between James Robinson and G. Willow Wilson, but as far as I'm concerned? It's going to loom large.
#51 is great issue. It's a one-shot in which Diana makes a series of trips across many years to visit a villain she randomly came across in someone else's story. It's a redemption arc, as the villain struggles to find peace with what happened, and Diana's insistence on the visits. It's a perfect encapsulation of what makes Diana different. You can't really picture Batman doing this, and for all the Superman stories that have been created over the years, I'm fairly certain he's never done it, either. Anyway, it was instantly one of my favorite comics of the year, and the reread confirmed that.
#52 is the start of an arc, and it features a new female Aztek, a character who debuted in the '90s, written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, who eventually joined Morrison's JLA. Kind of instantly became obscure, especially for having been a Justice Leaguer in an era where it was once again composed almost exclusively of all-stars. But Aztek was always a great concept, and Orlando instantly grasps it. He also brings in Artemis, who was recently part of Red Hood and the Outlaws, but who also comes from the '90s, the lesser known Wonder Woman replacement from a time when all the big characters were being replaced. It feels like a big Wonder Woman story in ways that rarely happen, and it's also kind of a comic book version of the allies she assembles in the blockbuster movie. Orlando's Wonder Woman will definitely be a collection I will add to my collection.
The Wrong Earth #3 (Ahoy)
Ahoy Comics launched to some amount of buzz in part thanks to landing a Grant Morrison prose backup feature. The company's whole thing seems to be another of those "we're bringing comics back to how you remember them!" deals. But these aren't comics as I want to read this. The Wrong Earth reads like a shallow parody. Nuff said.
Uncanny X-Men #1 (Marvel)
I haven't particularly cared about the X-Men since the Hope saga ended. Of course I've never been a dedicated reader. Still haven't even read Morrison's complete New X-Men! So to say I've been part of the legion (heh) of observers who've been wondering if the X-Men were ever going to be relevant again, it doesn't carry the same weight as fans who've spent more time with them. But I wanted to see what this latest effort was going to be like. I like Bishop being right there on the cover. Ever since I came across him in the '90s I've always thought this was a character with at least equal potential as Cable. Both of them were time-traveling mutants from dystopic futures, but Cable always hogged the spotlight. A number of creators working in converging narratives come together to explain the latest mutant crisis, another drug threatening to take their abilities away. But this time as a vaccine, that will prevent new mutants from ever knowing they were ever even mutants.
Now, this has a ton of storytelling potential. A lot of fans accused Marvel in recent years of trying to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans, whose major recent story was the roving Terrigan mists that randomly created new Inhumans. But this is something very different. This isn't people being scared that they're going to be victimized. This is a new twist on the familiar narrative of denying mutants a future. There's apparently going to be another Age of Apocalypse style event following the "X-Men Disassembled" arc, and Marvel fans, who complain about everything Marvel does these days (we're a long, lone way off from the old Marvel zombies days, which conveniently now exist in cinematic form), are complaining that Marvel is just piling event after event. But I suspect there's method to this madness, and I'd like to keep tabs on it.
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