Sunday Marvel Sunday "Captain Marvel #1 (2019)"

Captain Marvel #1

If there's one thing modern Marvel fans don't like it's...Uh, it's kind of Marvel.  Yeah.  They don't like Marvel.  This happens to fanbases all the time, actually.  They end up pretty much hating what they love.

I think it's actually starting to turn around recently, but the fans kind of decided they were getting enough of what they loved in the movies, I guess.  And the comics just kept driving them away.  Secret Empire happened, of course, but before that they didn't like Civil War II (which I loved) and before that there was Hickman's Secret Wars.  Yeah.  The fans were sick of Hickman.  Then of course in recent months they love him again because of X-Men.

A lot of this hate was derived from the perception that Marvel was attempting to ignore everything fans loved in an attempt to replace them with other things.  One of those things was Captain Marvel.  No, not the original one.  That one died in a graphic novel that those fans probably barely remember today, thanks in part to Marvel's complete inability to evergreen its past. For years this was unnecessary, since Marvel fans loved everything Marvel did, and everything was remembered and considered continuity, even with a thousand LMD gotchas (please don't make me explain LMD).  There were exceptions, round about when the company was facing bankruptcy in the '90s, such as the Clone Saga, and then Morrison's Xorn reveal, and Loeb's Ultimatum, and a few other examples.  But it wasn't until social media went full poison and everything was awful that Marvel officially lost its cool status.  In the comics, anyway.

Anyway, this Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers, a character with a huge amount of history behind her...and about as many identities.  Which is to say, it's hard to pin down her legacy, let alone her relevance.  Eventually, her status as the new Captain Marvel helped her settle down, and Marvel decided that she could have a movie.  And, in all horrible audacity, about equal status as Iron Man, which was why Civil War II was so upsetting, because Iron Man, who had been the bad guy in Civil War I, was now the good guy.  And Captain Marvel was the bad guy. 

And fans responded as if, even though they never really thought Iron Man was the bad guy in Civil War I, that Captain Marvel as the bad guy in Civil War II was bad enough to hate the character forever.  Until the movie, which was about as successful as any other solo MCU movie.

The point is, it's really tough being Carol Danvers, but Marvel is keeping up the commitment.  So this latest reboot (in an era of Constant Marvel Reboots) sees her chumming around as Just Another Significant Avenger, including a super awkward reunion with James Rhodes (who sort of died during Civil War II, or maybe it was Secret Empire), with whom she'd had a relationship (y'know, before he died).

And then she becomes the latest Marvel superhero to End Up In A Strange Land.  Because that's one of those things, most famously depicted in "Planet Hulk," which is what the Hulk arc in Thor: Ragnarok was drawn from.

Now you know way too much.  Or too little.  Either way, that's it for this sort-of review.

Watching the Walmart Giants 6 "January 2020"

I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be checking in with these things.  A lot of what drove me initially was the original content, in extended arcs, from Tom King and Brian Michael Bendis, and the recent selections have suggested that DC just isn't interested in pursuing the equivalent at least in the immediate future.  Some of this is because of reader apathy, not only in seeking out, like I did, the original releases, but the repackaged material released directly to comic book stores.  And I think that's really down to readers just not expecting that DC would've provided substantial material, even from King or Bendis, which I vehemently disagree with, having read the material myself.  King's Superman was exactly on par with his best, and was my favorite comics material published last year by far.

Still, we have some solace.  As I've been talking about recently, the recent releases do have Mark Russell.  But his material is episodic.  I don't know if there are plans for this to change, or if in fact DC abandoned the idea of serialized original content entirely, possibly because of the bad press one of King's entries received (ironically, some of the only press the Walmart Giants received aside from announcements for line revisions).

Ironically, I'm about to talk about another piece, from Russell, that did just that, too.

Batman Giant #3

• New story from Mark Russell and Ryan Benjamin, featuring Bruce Wayne becoming entangled in a scheme to entrap Wayne's upper crust colleagues, who are caught in some of their seedier deals.  The original solicits suggested it would be another Joker story, like Russell's previous Giant tale, but Joker is more a supporting act in this one, while Batman is caught up attempting to play a game of entrapment against these colleagues from both angles, in and out of costume.  The ending is a tad ambiguous.  One panel suggests Batman might actually be shredding some evidence that could be used against him, after it's been revealed that his colleagues routinely launder their dirty money through Wayne Enterprises.  Either way, it's a nice bit of storytelling, a worthy examination of how complicit Batman might actually be in the very crimes he's committed to fighting, simply because his secret identity is billionaire Bruce Wayne.  (If it were Ollie Queen, he'd attempt giving up his wealth, but surprisingly that's never really been considered with Batman.)
• New story from Frank Tieri and Scott Eaton featuring Two-Face's obsession with his lucky coin, which sort of hinges on his awareness of how it cripples him and still deciding to blame Batman for his ill-luck.
• Reprint of Batman #3 from Snyder, Capullo, and the New 52.
• Reprint of Detective Comics #855 featuring Kate Kane's early solo Batwoman adventures.
• Reprint of Nightwing #3 from Rebirth, featuring Batgirl and Raptor, the eponymous "Better Than Batman" of the arc, attempting to give Dick a better mentor figure.  But turns out he's kind of, well, a dick.

Birds of Prey Giant #1
I begin to suspect that the new wave of giants are going to be a lot of first issues without a second issue, except for a select few.

• New story from Gail Simone and Inaki Miranda featuring the team.
• New story from Robert Venditti and Isaac Goodhart featuring Harley Quinn (in case you were in any doubt that this giant was geared toward readers anticipating the upcoming movie).  I'm not really a Harley fan, but this one does a decent job of spotlighting her motives.
• New story from John Layman and Cully Hamner (a solid duo right there) featuring Huntress outlining her familiar personal crusade.  Would be somewhat easier to understand if she were, as she was on Earth 2, still the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.  Here she struggles to stand out, though she had a good running start in the '90s.
• Reprint of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #14 from Rebirth.  There's an ad for the collections from the original '90s comics, but it's surprising they didn't actually reprint from them.
• Reprint of Black Canary #9, the New 52 series featuring Dinah as a bloody rock god.  I was always curious if it was actually worth reading more, but I'm still undecided after this.
• Reprint from New Talent Showcase, with an artist who probably should not have been showcased.

Reading Comics 241 "Batman Annual #4, plus a few more comics"

Batman Annual #4 (DC)

Yeah.  Now I'm sort of glad that this was the last one I read.  I had attempted to order a copy late last year, but got the numbering wrong and ended up with Batman Annual #2, which is itself also a great read, but it left me still needing to read this one.  And now I've read it after the last issue of Tom King's Batman.  And it works extremely well as a coda.

Basically, Alfred's diary, as the cover suggests, details the daily exploits of the Dark Knight.  Big adventures (dragons! and not the first time he's fought them, as Alfred duly notes!), small adventures.  Basically, as if Tom King really needed to prove to anyone he was capable of conceiving a Batman story well beyond the scope of his very long meditation in the main run.  Or if he really needed to prove, yet again, how consistently great he is.

A lot of writers, and I've read a lot of comics, and a lot of comics over the course of years from the same creators, are not this consistent.  They just aren't.  Even those who can hit truly high notes once or twice or even a half dozen times in their careers, they just aren't this consistent.  Sometimes it may simply be a matter of my disagreeing with their personal tastes.  But I've never had a comics writer I've so consistently admired as Tom King, since his breakthrough in the pages of Omega Men.  His co-writing work with Tim Seeley in Grayson, it's something I'll have to revisit in full at some point (though I repeat, I repeat, King's solo work in Grayson: Futures End remains the first time I realized how great he could be), but that's really the only time I haven't been able to say, Wow. 

A lot of fans quibble (and I use the term liberally) over his creative choices, but King, as far as I'm concerned, has achieved his greatness through his consistent use of creative choices, never being satisfying in "just" writing a story, but figuring out the best way to tell it.  That's what truly great writing looks like, that's what I love the most about a story, in any medium, how it's executed. 

And so we get this, which on the surface is pretty simple: a litany of fairly routines situations.  By the end, King isn't even writing anything the reader will see, and his perspective still dominates.  It helps to have Jorge Fornes (and Mike Norton) on art.  Fornes has quickly vaulted to the forefront of deceptively simple stylists, and this might end up serving as one of his calling cards.  Both in story and art, this is the definition of evergreen, something fans will be able to turn to for years.

The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child (DC)
In the tradition of the Last Crusade prestige format one-shot spin-offs, Golden Child focuses on Carrie, Lara, and Jonathan (the eponymous offspring for this comic) as they struggle to find their perspectives on the world and how they represent the legacies of their parents.  It's a worthy addition to the saga, and really nice to see Frank Miller get to write solo again.  The artist does a good job of embodying Miller's Dark Knight Returns work, notably with the Joker.

Event Leviathan #6 (DC)
This is something I'm going to want to check out in full, but had to read the final issue sooner rather than later thanks to the big reveal of who the new Leviathan is, one of the old Manhunters (not the robots, the several humans who have operated under the name over the years).  I think Bendis has only further increased the value of his DC tenure with this one.

Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #2 (DC)
Even though the Bendis ongoing has since launched, I was pleased to be able to catch the second and final issue of the preview, Rose (and Thorn)'s tour of DC future history leading up to the Legion itself.  Brian Michael Bendis basically achieved the Moira MacTaggert reveal from Hickman's X-Men before Hickman, with the new version of Rose (and Thorn) an immortal who gives an innovative (in superhero comics) approach to the idea, and begging that he revisit her.  But at his best, Bendis does that with every character he touches.  \

The Wildstorm #24 (DC)
Figured I'd check out the finale of the Warren Ellis reboot.  But I'm still not much more interested in the characters, or Ellis, than I generally tend to be. 

Sunday Marvel Sunday "Captain America #6 (2019)"

Captain America #6

Let's start this off by remarking that I'm apparently making labels not only for the writer (Ta-Nehisi Coates) but the artist (Leinil Francis Yu) as well.  I'm more surprised by the latter, as Yu is a well-established comics superstar I've enjoyed on a number of projects over the years, and his continued presence at Marvel has been one of the big lies fans have had to swallow in recent years when complaining that "all the good artists left." 

Coates himself has been a hugely prominent literary figure in recent years, not just among black readers but in general; last year's The Water Dancer has been widely hailed as one of 2019's best books.  I haven't read him outside of a few comics, including his Black Panther, and now this.

Ironically, this particular issue could just as easily have been written by Ed Brubaker.  During his historic run, Brubaker, as least as far as I was concerned, often seemed as if he wasn't interested in Captain America himself so much as...anything around him, even before the Civil War death.  Coates actually uses a Brubaker villain(s family) to achieve the effect, the Russian Lukins (including one brought back from the grave). 

There was some concern, when Coates took over the title, that he wouldn't be the right fit for Cap, being as he is primarily interested in the black perspective.  Such concerns were probably already racist, and at any rate have been proven baseless, given how, as noted, he delivers an issue like this that could've easily been part of someone else's (and notably a white dude who writes primarily white dude comics) run.

The next issue promised to continue the plot, another of those "Man Without a Country" arcs Cap has enjoyed repeatedly over the years.  So yeah, I think Coates fits in nicely with Captain America.

Reading Comics 240 "Batman #85, Doomsday Clock #12, and more"

Because there were a few comics I had to read at the end of the year, I put in another order at Midtown, and this is what I got:

Batman Annual #2 (DC)

This isn’t the issue I was aiming for, but it was nice to revisit all the same, as it demonstrates Tom King’s lyrical grace, a quality that seemed to have eluded many of his readers, or at least his many critics.  But if something like this escapes them, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether or not they approve.  At the end is a coda for King’s whole conception of Batman, and Catwoman, and it is beautiful.

Batman #85 (DC)

Here’s King’s grand finale, which splits time between defeating Thomas Wayne/Flashpoint Batman, and tying everything up, how the whole thing flowed from Batman’s theory of a “good death” at the start of King’s run, how he finally reconciled the death of his parents and what that meant about the existence of Batman, and his continued existence, and how his relationship with Catwoman confirms all of it.  I think it’s brilliant, but then I think just about everything Tom King does is brilliant.  He has no contemporary equal.  He may in fact be the best superhero comics writer ever.  And he has set the bar very high indeed.

Batman: Last Knight on Earth #3 (DC)

A Batman finale of a different order, this is Scott Snyder and Greg Capulo’s farewell.  As I was reading it, it suddenly occurred to me that if there’s any logic Snyder has followed all these years, it’s probably Dan Jurgens’.  Dan is famously the guy who in the final analysis is responsible for the death of Superman.  He further contributed to DC ‘90s lore with Zero Hour, an event that’s frequently overlooked but is probably one of the greatest event comics ever written, a “Crisis in Time” that expanded on Hal Jordan’s fall from grace to truly epic proportions and offered a plausible reshaping of continuity that hit a very soft reset button.  But Jurgens more often writes his superheroes in broader strokes.  His ideas are seldom as grounded in grace as his best stories (sort of like Mark Waid), and so he’s kind of easy to dismiss as the comics great that he ultimately is, at his best.  Snyder, meanwhile, has so often leaned on the assistance of cowriters it’s probably easy to forget that he has relied so often on them, when his legacy has shrunk to the “one great thing to come out of the New 52.”  He needs someone to temper his crazier instincts.  He’s the kind of writer who looks at the examples other writers have set, and considered only that they look like the most outrageous thing that could’ve been done, and so what he needs to do is the most outrageous thing he can come up with, and the logic will explain itself.  And his ideas are sound, but the execution always beggars the imagination of the reader more than convincingly tells a story.  His big finale, as he seemed to decide after coming up with the Court of Owls in his original Batman comics, centers around Batman’s relationship with the Joker.  As far as the Joker is concerned, everything he has ever done was meant to make Batman the best he could be.  But I don’t think Batman would ever be comfortable with that assessment, even in a scenario where he’s confronted with a version of himself that’s the worst he could be (and even there, Snyder doesn’t adequately account for how Batman could end up wanting to take over the whole world; that’s a story that would contrast Batman with Lex Luthor, not himself, much less Joker) (and while we’re on the subject, Snyder really, really missed a trick with his current projects when he called his upgraded Luthor “Apex Lex,” when, since the rhyme is already there, the logic clearly dictates calling him “Apex Luthor).  As far as Snyder’s own logic goes, I suppose this is as appropriate a finale as he could’ve envisioned.  This isn’t what I thought the original cloning concept he introduced way back in Detective Comics #27 (the New 52 edition), but at least he did something with it.

Doomsday Clock #12 (DC)

The second grand finale I wanted to catch (the above Snyder was merely incidental, not something I had intended to go out of my way to catch), or at least read for myself, since I had allowed the internet to spoil it for me.  Naturally, the internet was most interested in Geoff Johns outlining the theoretical future of DC lore.  I don’t think anyone at DC seriously expects this material to be followed (considering one of the stories referenced is apparently another crossover with Marvel, a situation always fraught with complications, as the long development of JLA/Avengers proved).  The sentiment itself represents the central thesis that DC follows Superman, that wherever he goes, his new continuity is the foundation of DC’s new continuity, even going so far as to suggest that if comics are still being made in 3020, a thousand years from now, the age of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superman’s origin will take place then, and continuity will resettle around him once again, even though the Legion took its inspiration from the exploits of Superboy a thousand years earlier.  I think the whole project is justified.  It gives Doctor Manhattan a far more satisfying arc than he got in Watchmen (although I think Zack Snyder corrected that in his movie, too), removing the cynicism of Alan Moore himself and allowing a man who can see everything (except his ultimate fate) to adequately comprehend it, given the opportunity to make a decision, or in this instance, rethink a decision.  Which may also have been the point.

Family Tree #2 (Image)

I wanted to have a look at this latest Jeff Lemire project.  The guy is the most prolific creator in comics!  The art is from Phil Hester, whom I always love to see pop up with new work.  A fine variation on familiar Lemire themes.

Flash Forward #4 (DC)

I had already read what happened in this one, too, but wanted a chance to experience it for myself: Wally West meets Lightspeed, Linda Park!  But, of course, a Linda Park from an alternate reality, and who doesn’t particularly care what a counterpart made of Wally.  But the comic is also toying with Wally reuniting with his kids, which is something I’ve become much more fond of in the years since Mark Waid first introduced them in his return to Wally’s adventures, which were sort of a soft launch of the Tomasi/Gleason Superman, which wasn’t as good as their Batman & Robin, but still well worth existing.  And I think most fans will agree, if Wally is back, his whole family ought to get to join him, too.  Hopefully this comic has a truly happy ending.

Incoming! (Marvel)

Basically a tour of the current Marvel landscape, another visit with the Masked Raider (I don’t know if this guy, that name, and his gunslinging costume, is destined for greatness, but he’s nice to hang these stories on), and the push for the upcoming Kree/Skrull invasion of Earth!  The movies are probably headed somewhere in that direction, too, so it’s nice for the comics to get there first, for a change (a lot of recent comics belatedly obsessed over Thanos, which seemed way too obvious at that point), picking up where a famous, but forgotten-except-by-diehards-because-Marvel-can’t-keep-its-defining-stories-in-print Avengers epic left off way back in the ‘70s (or ‘60s? but I think ‘70s).  And central to all this?  My 2005 inner Marvel nerd is excited that it’s characters from Young Avengers! 

Invisible Kingdom #8 (Dark Horse)

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of bad about not caring that G. Willow Wilson has enjoyed so much success in recent years, since Air was such a favorite of mine from when nobody else cared, so I checked out an issue of this project.  It’s okay. 

Joker: Killer Smile #2 (DC)

Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino once again reunite for a tale of a psychiatrist’s descent into madness when he believes he can figure out the Clown Prince.  A bit obvious, but a sort of welcome companion to Lemire’s brilliant Moon Knight.

Klaus: The Life & Times of Joe Christmas (Boom!)

I haven’t had much luck reading the annual Christmas follow-ups to Grant Morrison and Dan Mora’s original Klaus, so I was pleased to order (because as I’ve come to understand, I just won’t be able to find it in an actual comics shop) the latest.  This one’s sort of in the model of a calendar, which counts up from December 1 and ends on the 25^th.  And there is no dialogue, only a chronicle of the life and adventures of Joe Christmas, who sort of becomes Klaus’s sidekick.  I almost choked up when I realized the cat had died.  Great comic.  Might singlehandedly justify Morrison’s whole concept of making Santa Claus a superhero.  Years from now someone could write a whole series around Joe Christmas based on this one comic, or maybe they could base a movie on it.  (Hint hint.)

The Old Guard: Force Multiplied #1 (Image)

I read the original miniseries in trade paperback at the library, and was immediately smitten, so I was extremely glad to discover this follow-up.  Perhaps moreso than the story itself is value of the Greg Rucka essay at the end detailing his thoughts about the origins and emerging legacy of Old Guard, including an upcoming Netflix movie version.  I’m glad things are working out this way.

The Amazing Spider-Man #36 (Marvel)

I was suckered into buying this issue because the solicitation listed Pat Gleason as the artist.  He was not.  But I subsequently picked up a slightly earlier issue, and he was. 

Superman Smashes the Klan #2 (DC)

Gene Luen Yang writes perhaps his most important Superman and/or DC comic, at last, detailing a group of kids’ experiences with Superman as he, well, battles the Klan, centering around a Chinese perspective, not in the way Hollywood has been catering to the massive Chinese market in recent years, but because Yang has more immediate ties, the kind that stretch across American history.  We tend to forget, except for all that Chinese food that was actually invented in America, how long the Chinese have been here, and how complicated their lives have been here.  Thankfully Yang is here to help fill in the gaps.  Included is an essay detailing Superman history that’s both familiar and also relevant to Yang’s perspective and intentions.

Sunday Marvel Sunday "Captain America #696"

Captain America #696

After Nazi Rogers happened, fans acted as if they had...never read a comic book before.  It was one of the most bizarre things that ever happened in comics.  Steve Rogers, thanks to a fragment of the Cosmic Cube, existed in a reality where he was raised as a loyal agent of Hydra.  Avengers: Endgame kind of cleverly played into that in the reprise of the excellent Captain America: Winter Soldier elevator sequence (probably, for me, best moment of both movies, really).  But then comic book logic undid it, of course, and Captain America wasn't a secret agent of Hydra anymore.

The whole thing was an exercise in the pointless outrage culture.  Of course, a lot of Golden Age comic book creators, including Cap's, were Jewish, so it was considered particularly offensive, even for a storytelling stunt, to create Nazi Rogers.  But, again, this is comic books we're talking about.  If there's a single mainstream superhero who has never undergone an outrageous crisis, I'd really know who it is. 

And Secret Empire was a brilliant story.  Taking a paragon of virtue and making him the face of the enemy, it was fresh territory, which is a hard thing to do in superhero comics.

But everyone panicked, and Marvel thought taking an abrupt turnaround was in order.  And so was brought in Mark Waid, that guy who made his name being a huge fan who knew everything, but eventually broke out taking existing Flash lore and greatly expanding it.  Turns out Waid was only capable of doing that once.  So he fell back on being a being a huge fan who knew everything.  And basically producing feel-good comics with Marvel properties like the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and yes, Captain America.

His idea of Cap's comeback tour was literally a tour, in itself not an entirely original idea in comics, of America, just trying to step away from the grind.  And of course learning along the way that the regular folk do still love him. 

Kind of on the nose, of course, but that's been my impression of all Waid's Marvel work.  I don't know if he burned out, like James Robinson did writing Starman, on trying to do big things.  The longer he wrote Flash, the harder he found it to hit the high notes, and perhaps as a result, fans today still don't really appreciate what he accomplished.  His was basically the template Geoff Johns later followed.  And ironically, Johns was doing Waid's Marvel act until he figured out how to do Waid's Flash act.  And has never looked back.

Waid continues to grasp for relevance.  He did Flash.  He did Kingdom Come.  He even did Strange Fruit.  Fans can believe whatever they like about his best work.  But it's really Waid who seems incapable of understanding his best instincts.

Sunday Marvel Sunday "Avengers #2 (2018)"

Avengers #2
December 2018

I got a bunch of packs of Marvel comics late last year at Walmart, and will be talking about them individually here every Sunday.  Here's the first one!

I clarified in the title which year this came out, because Marvel has relaunched all its major titles about a billion times.  Helpfully, this black and white fifth printing includes a legacy numbering of #692, which was also helpful.

The creators are Jason Aaron, who just finished up a near-decade chronicling the adventures of Thor, and Ed McGuinness, who was a major name at the start of the millennium but has inexplicably slipped below superstar status since moving his horse to Marvel, where one of his first projects was Red-Hulk with Jeph Loeb.  I knew he was still in the doghouse when fans were complaining about the cover art from the first issue, as if they had never heard of McGuinness before, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising from the kind of community I've also seen this kind of reception from the likes of Matt Wagner, as if nobody had seen his work before.

The comic itself is quip-heavy, which seems to lean into the Avengers of the movies, which is solid enough thinking, considering how insanely popular the movies are, although technically this mindset probably comes from the comics, the Bendis revival that made the team relevant again, if not the Ultimates version that inspired a few movie elements like Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (since they kind of cast him in that role first).

She-Hulk, as depicted by McGuinness, is looking like Banner Hulk these days, even though she's more traditionally depicted as a well-developed regular body-type.  That's her in the lower corner.

Captain Marvel is there doing her modern Captain Marvel thing, which annoys fans because she's only been doing it for a few years and the other guys have been doing it for decades.  It would perhaps be more helpful if she were an entirely new character, but entirely new characters haven't done so well in recent decades.

The new Ghost Rider has a car.  Nic Cage probably would've loved that version, circa Gone In 60 Seconds ("Driiiive!"), but then he still did two movies of the classic biker version.  I still think a lot of non-MCU Marvel movies are wildly unappreciated, especially since the MCU phenomenon hit full-stride.  Nic Cage is an excellent Ghost Rider.  (Haven't actually seen the second one.  Don't think Eva Mendes is in it.  Seems less important.)

Yadda yadda yadda, Loki shows up, saves the issue from generic villains with vaguely Kirbyesque designs.  The end.