Quarter Bin 103 "Moon Knight"

Moon Knight #4, 7-10, 13-17 (Marvel)
from August 2014-September 2015

So, inspired by Jeff Lemire's recently concluded Moon Knight, and remembering I'd once read the last issue of Brian Michael Bendis's run, too, and last year so other back issues (I could check to see how much I may have duplicated my reading, but...nah), I decided to have a look at some older stuff, from the likes of Warren Ellis (I figured if anyone was comparable to Lemire it'd be him), Brian Wood (I have a spotty history with him), and Cullen Bunn (not the biggest fan).

And Greg Smallwood, by the way.  He illustrates the Wood issues.  It's clear he hadn't yet developed the intricacy of what he'd later bring to Lemire's run, but it's still fun having that continuity.

Of course none of them were ever going to do exactly what Lemire later did.  That would kind of diminish Lemire's work, I think.  But there's stuff here and there. I mean, it's the same character, who long ago developed a reputation for multiple personas. 

Ellis has Declan Shalvey on art.  Shalvey has kind of become a big deal recently.  Bunn doesn't have anyone with name value doing his run, and he has the least distinguished storytelling, the stuff you'd expect from someone who has a far more generalized concept of the character, who recognizes the trappings but can't quite exploit them. 

It was interesting, reading more Moon Knight.  That's about all I can say about these issues, seeing where the character came from immediately before Lemire.

Quarter Bin 72 "Moon Knight is the connoisseur's Deadpool"

Let's recap.  These comics were not literally bought from a quarter bin.  The title of this column is symbolic.

Moon Knight #7 (Marvel)
From November 2014.
It strikes me that no one is running around trying to get Moon Knight into his own movie.  Well, maybe someone is, after the big success of Deadpool?  Because Moon Knight is basically the connoisseur's Deadpool.  Marvel has been trying for about as long as it has with Deadpool to get Moon Knight to connect.  At first a fairly lame and obvious Batman rip-off, because he was so expendable, Marvel let its creators loose, and for several short-lived series now (including one written by Brian Michael Bendis), Moon Knight has emerged as one of the company's better creative vehicles.  Now more or less a psychotic vigilante, a kind of Marvel version of the Spirit, Moon Knight in this particular series and/or issue is written by Brian Wood, who is well-loved in the comics community but with whom I've continually failed to connect as a reader.  This issue features a more or less straight Spirit adventure for Moon Knight, despite the fact that the tag line in the intro page specifically addresses that he is insane and this is what follows...Well, apparently in this series Marvel has determined that Moon Knight addresses how absurd the concept of vigilantes really is.  But the character still has better overall storytelling potential than the relentlessly one-note Deadpool...

Winter Soldier #1 (Marvel)
From May 2014.
Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes, is a signature character of Marvel's post-millennial comics, a resurrected, repackaged, repurposed superhero who helped lead the way to the Avengers movies and has otherwise spent a lot of time being written by Ed Brubaker, who envisioned the whole concept.  This issue, however, is written by Rick Remender, with whom I have a better record than Brian Wood.  But Winter Soldier, ironically, barely appears in this issue.  Instead, it's a Nick Fury/S.H.I.E.L.D. Cold War/Nazi Hangover adventure (as are a lot of Marvel stories).  Presumably later issues more directly feature, y'know, the Winter Soldier...

All-New X-Men #27 (Marvel)
From September 2014.
A series that shipped twice-monthly, All-New X-Men wasn't as old as its numbering this issue suggests.  I read the early issues thanks to the pairing of Brian Bendis and Stuart Immomen, who was finally emerging from a long quagmire in which he didn't draw very much like, y'know, Stuart Immonen.  But the Immonen who shows up in this issue is kind of phoning it in, as is Bendis, whose grand vision for his time-lost original X-Men and more contemporary mutants had kind of petered out into a time travel adventure...with future enemies!  I had high hopes for a Bendis X-Men.  Everyone did.  I mean, he nearly single-handedly invented the Avengers as we know them today (also contributing: The Ultimates and Brubaker's Captain America).  In the end, I think it was the overreliance on the increasingly baffling gimmick of the time-lost X-Men.  For one arc, it would have made perfect sense.  But then he just kept it going and going...Which is kind of a Bendis trademark.  And maybe something he really ought to work on...

Wolverine and the X-Men #9 (Marvel)
From November 2014.
This is from the days of "Death of Wolverine," so Marvel was about to kill off its most popular character in order to spite 20th Century Fox.  But these were good days.  This issue features Logan confronting a rogue student (saddled with a terrible name I won't dignify here) who eventually makes it clear that it isn't all X-Men or Brotherhood of Mutants.  There's a third option.  There always is.  So, a pretty good issue. 

Reading Comics 160 "More from 5/13/15"

G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes, Agent of Cobra #5 (IDW)

The conclusion of Mike Costa's latest continuation of his sprawling Cobra saga features an epic confrontation between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, plus more of Costa's trademark insights, not only into various characters but the general G.I. Joe landscape.  I keep heaping praise on the whole thing, but really at this point I'm just glad that IDW keeps letting Costa continue the whole thing, because the fans just aren't showing up, and every time Costa does something else, he doesn't seem to bring the same verve or perspective.  But I guess I'm okay with that...

Ms. Marvel #15 (Marvel)

G. Willow Wilson has me as a fan, but I've never quite connected with her again the way I did over Air.  I'm glad she's got a big hit in Ms. Marvel, but I've grown increasingly frustrated at the title spinning its wheels.  The conclusion to the "Crushed" arc makes it plain as an allegory for Muslims (or any other group) being unfairly represented by their worst representatives (which sadly, for Muslims, are not at all hard to find), a topic of considerable importance to Wilson, since she's a convert to Islam, and as such probably doesn't like her religion looking so bad.  That being said, the charm has begun to fade on this series.  The heavier the material has gotten, the more it's lost its buoyancy, which is a statement that only sounds obvious when voiced that way, and the buoyancy is exactly what made it so unique to begin with.  I will keep reading, but increasingly that's a statement that seems destined to end with "until I don't."

Rebels #2 (Dark Horse)

Be careful, writers.  That's a message I say not so much about Rebels itself but what writer Brian Wood writes about himself in the back of this issue.  He talks about his political views, and how he's writing Rebels in part to reclaim a part of himself he believes has been denied himself in the post-9/11 climate.  And yet in doing so, he seems to totally misinterpret the climate of Rebels itself.  The story in the issue seems to corroborate this view, as it takes a somewhat simplistic idea of who the people were who decided to fight...And I don't know how a writer who presents himself the way Wood does could possibly come to such a conclusion.  There's absolutely nothing simplistic about the American Revolution, or about the people who decided to take up arms against England for the sake of independence.  It's perhaps most frustrating because Wood, at least in this issue, has chosen for his main character a fictional base-level soldier in this war, someone whose motives perhaps could boil down to simplicity...but if you want to explore the complexities of this period, and reclaim a part of yourself, a writer probably should choose a different tack.  And that's at least two reasons why I once again will not be able to read a Brian Wood series.  This is four missed opportunities for me now.  I guess I'm just not a Brian Wood guy...

Saga #28 (Image)

In contrast, I've connected with Brian K. Vaughan with two out of his four major projects, so I'm much more comfortable calling myself a Brian K. Vaughan guy even though I don't always care about what he's doing.  Saga is at once a work of genius and also a series that at times seems like it desperately wants to repeat the Walking Dead model.  I can hear a million voices saying, What can possibly be wrong with that???  Well, for starters, Saga can easily turn away from looking like a work of genius and become something that spins its wheels for the sake of remaining in-print (which, ah, is basically my impression of Walking Dead, and also the TV series).  Which is not to say that a given issue of Saga doesn't feature everything I love about it, but that the story can drag quite a bit.  Each issue features as little of the overall story as possible (when people talk about Brian Michael Bendis, they like to use the term "decompression;" they should consider applying it to Vaughan, too), which can be frustrating.  And so when Vaughan reiterates at the prompting of a letter that he can easily see the series continue on for years, I scratch my head.  Because at this pace, we will have seen the story advanced to a considerable degree years from now.  Oh, now I get it...

Strange Sports Stories #3 (Vertigo)

There's only one reason why I bought this one, part of an anthology mini-series, and that's because it features CM Punk's second foray into comics.  Punk was a professional wrestler until about a year and a half ago, but his every movement is still followed with breathless anticipation by wrestling fans (who obviously expect him to wrestle again at any moment), so when news of his working in comics began to appear, I was eager to see what he would do with such an opportunity.  Recently it was announced that he'd be writing an ongoing Drax the Destroyer comic (appropriate, since Drax was portrayed by another ex-wrestler, Batista, in Guardians of the Galaxy), but before that Punk has been limited to much shorter material.  His first effort was in Thor Annual #1 earlier this year, in which he proved a deft hand at comedy.  Here he spins a yarn obviously dedicated to the Chicago Cubs, using a caption-heavy approach that contrasts nicely with his earlier work (he has versatility!).  Punk has long been heavily associated with his hometown of Chicago, so it's not at all surprising that he demonstrates an affinity for the Cubs (looking really good this season!).  He chooses to spotlight the idea of the team being cursed (several times over!).  As a member in good standing of Red Sox Nation (season looking horrible!), I can understand the intricacies of curses, and can appreciate the restraint necessary to talk about such things with the kind of relaxed mood Punk demonstrates, especially since he exited wrestling with a lot less patience in mind (is the whole story a code suggesting he isn't done after all???).  And yes, the rest of the issue is utter gibberish.  It's clobbering time!

Reading Comics #113 "Free Comic Book Day, Part 2"

By Saturday evening I'd lost my opportunity to experience Free Comic Book Day in its purest form, and yet the hangover proved perhaps more interesting than the regularly-scheduled celebration.  I've previously discussed my visit to Muse Comics in Colorado Springs on the day itself.  Now we'll talk about Sunday.

There are a surprising number of comic book stores in Colorado Springs.  As of this year there are even two shops for Escape Velocity, formerly known as Bargain Comics, which should be considered the godfather of them all.  There's also Heroes & Dragons, which was my entry point in the city when I moved here in 2007.  Ed's Cards and Comics is the third of these, rounding out the shops carrying new releases on a regular basis.  Yesterday I didn't go to any of these.  Instead I felt like making a trip to CK Comics in Manitou Springs, just to visit it for the first time.

After some initial scouring I wasn't terribly impressed.  It seemed like much more of a comics novelty shop than anything, and doesn't even overtly display new releases.  Yet it had been advertised by the FCBD site as participating in the event.  I already knew that Heroes & Dragons doesn't participate.  Escape Velocity is usually good to have some extra copies after the day itself, but doubtfully the main ones.  So CK it was...hopefully.  I looked and I looked.  Eventually I found one of those comic book boxes on the floor, and it contains oodles of FCBD comics.  Not all of them, but at this point I'm far more of a beggar than a chooser, right?

Still, this was a bountiful offering.  Here's what I got and what I thought of them:

Bongo Free-for-All (Bongo)
This publisher almost exclusively deals with Simpsons comics (with Futurama tossed in every now and again).  I've read some of it, strictly on a sporadic basis.  I love the cartoon, have for years (but mostly must abstain from the ever-persistent is-it-worse-than-before? debate as I don't get to watch on a regular basis these days, although every time I've watched new episodes I've still been amused), and the comics do a good job of capturing its spirit in a different format.  The characters do in fact translate well even without their distinctive voices.  There are several stories in the issue.  The first involves Bart behaving atypically well, which itself isn't the apocalyptic development everyone takes t for, but merely the result of a bet he made with Milhouse, his best friend.  It's the lead and best story.  Another one features L'il Homer concerning his reluctance to take a bath and his father (known as Grampa or Abe) trying to tell him a cautionary tale that is welcomed much differently than intended.  The art takes subtle liberties from the Matt Groening archetypes, which is always nice to see.

Chakra the Invincible (Graphic India)
The most notable thing about this one is that it's the latest of the latter-day Stan Lee creations.  What's different about this one is that it's very much from the basic '60s archetype (I guess that's the word of the day) he established at Marvel, set in India.  I don't know if there's a wide American audience for this, but seems much more natural and capable of sustaining more than just a novelty act than just about anything he's done for years.  He's credited for concept and story, but he's not a writer.  The other thing of note is the "Invincible" subtitle.  Invincible is also a long-running Robert Kirkman series over at Image (a hundred issues and counting!), so it's a little funny to see this word (also frequently used in association with Iron Man) in use again.

Grimm #0 (Dynamite)
Dynamite is one of many smaller publishers that lives and breathes on licensed comics and established properties.  Grimm is also a TV series, one that seems to be amassing a cult audience that grows over time.  It's pretty clever, and this issue explains the whole concept, how the main character is a descendant of the famous brothers who helped codify fairy tales.  He alone is capable of seeing the true faces of the monsters who have integrated themselves into modern society.  The issue also includes a preview for the upcoming Damsels, which is a lot like what Bill Willingham has been doing in Vertigo's Fables, or the TV series Once Upon a Time, or even the cheesecakey comics of Zenescope.  The writers, Leah Moore and John Reppion, have been Dynamite's in-house literary classics/adaptation experts since their work with Alice in Wonderland and Dracula.  With the success of this spring's Oz the Great and Powerful in movie theaters, it may very well prove that fairy tale characters are due to succeed vampires and zombies as the new obsession.

Infinity (Marvel)
A preview for an upcoming event book, Infinity is also a canny bid to capitalize on the appearance of Thanos in the credits of last summer's blockbuster Avengers flick.  The company is making a concerted effort to shift its space-based properties to greater prominence, and this is a huge art of that.  The writer is Jonathan Hickman, who continues to try and elevate his name in the comics pantheon (Thanos was previously the baby of legend Jim Starlin).  The title is a nod to the classic Infinity Gauntlet (and its various sequels), which is also one of the odd bit of convergences between Marvel and DC, which bases a lot of its legacy on Crisis on Infinite Earths (and its various sequels).  Most of this preview with weird alien creatures and a mythology that only in its final pages points to Thanos, thereby making the whole thing exactly like Avengers.  (Marvel tends to repeat itself a lot.)  The artist is Jim Cheung, whom I still associate with the original Young Avengers.  He's got a playful yet serious style, which looks quite different in this altered context.  There's also a reprint of a vintage Thanos appearance.  For the record, Thanos has my vote as undisputed best Marvel villain.

KaBoom! Summer Blast! (Boom!)
KaBoom is the young readers imprint of Boom!, a company that at this point might as well admit that it has all but been driven into irrelevance by the licensed properties on display here.  Adventure Time is a crudely animated cartoon series that captures the spirit of the way children play (when they're playing something other than video games).  Amusingly (and confusingly), the story of Finn and Jake featured here takes the form of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books.  There are a lot of crazy arrows directing how to read it, but it's almost as much fun (and appropriate) to read all of the possible directions at the same time.  There are a few other such segments (including one based on te Ice Age movies), and there are also ones based on Peanuts and Garfield, two classic comic strips.  Peanuts creator Charles Schulz has been dead for more than a decade, and newspapers have continued to rerun the old strips, plus the regular airing of the Christmas TV special, but it's good that these characters live on in new adventures.  Amusingly, this one is all about Charlie Brown teaching the reader how to draw Linus, all while obsessing over baseball.  In fact, he uses baseball images to guide the entire process!  It's good stuff.  If this special guides readers to any of the featured titles,  would think they would undoubtedly be Adventure Time and Peanuts, unless readers don't like imaginative storytelling.

Star Wars/Captain Midnight/Avatar: The Last Airbender (Dark Horse)
This one's a grab bag, too, features three different spotlights, two of which are featured on the flipbook format's covers (the first and last I've listed).  I'm mostly familiar with Last Airbender thanks to the M. Night Shyamalan movie (which I loved).  The story in this issue is a tad like the Phil Hester comic I talked about in Part 1 of this FCBD series.  The Captain Midnight episode, meanwhile, is part of the company's periodic effort to enter the superhero game, mostly using characters they tried in the '90s as well.  A lot of these smaller publishers seem to equate prior publishing history as a built-in legacy that will compete with those of DC and Marvel.  I think they're slightly mistaken.  Captain Midnight is very much a pulp hero, which is something Dark Horse is going for this time (and so did DC when it did the Doc Savage comics a few years ago, in a line that also revived Will Eisner's The Spirit, while some other publishers are doing every unsigned Golden Age hero).  Anyway, the final one is Brian Wood on Star Wars.  Dark Horse has done thousands of Star Wars comics at this point, as much the definition of the expanded saga as any of the books.  "Expanded" means mostly noncanonical, but that doesn't seem to bother the publisher.  Wood is an indy star, and has recently burnished that reputation with Dark Horse as writer of The Massive (which reminded me of an earlier and superior series from the same publisher known as Zero Killer).  He seems to think it's just as well as anyone else who has written Star Wars in comics or books to pretty much play fast and loose with logic in order to have "kewl" moments.  In fact, that's what his whole story with Darth Vader, set just before the events of A New Hope, is all about, and yes, Boba Fett (as is often the case with these comics) is shoehorned into the story.  Although Dark Horse does score some points from me for the soon-to-launch comics based on George Lucas's original notes for The Star Wars.

The Walking Dead (Image)
The extremely clever thing that Robert Kirkman did for this special issue was to include new material.  Most of it is reprinted from origins of characters like Michonne and the Governor (both of whom were heavily featured in the latest season of the TV series), but one of the more obscure characters (as far as my experience goes) also gets some significant love.  Tyreese appeared pretty early in the comics, but has really only just popped in the series.  He's the one who gets the exclusive material.  Apparently he was envisioned as the replacement Shane, who in my mind not only completely stole the second season but was also the best reason to watch both the season and series as a whole, emblematic of what I think is the true strength of the series, not the sensationalism but the very human foibles on display, whether in extreme circumstances or otherwise (although yes, Darryl was an immediate standout for me, too).  I've read the comic sporadically (although pretty regularly for a few months), but I think the series does it more justice.  Kirkman, especially in this special spotlighting reactions to a suddenly apocalyptic setting, does a good job of being thought-provoking, but I'm not sure if he's just incredibly cynical (although not as much as Cormac McCarthy was in The Road, and certainly not as redemptive as Stephen King in The Stand) or taking an extremely long time to explore his story (he says he envisions two hundred [or maybe it was three?] issues), and that just seems excessive and leaves most of it seem unfocused rather than methodical.

Last Week's Comics and an Epic Showdown

It should be noted that sometimes "last week's comics" will include some purchases that were not actually released last week.


Aquaman #10 (DC) Ever since Brightest Day, Geoff Johns has made it his mission to revive Aquaman as a legitimate presence in comics.  DC has tried just about everything in many different revivals to achieve this over the years, but Johns alone seems to have had the radical approach of merely making Aquaman himself interesting.  As he's done with Green Lantern, Johns has achieved this by widening the scope of Aquaman's career.  Previous efforts to this regard have always centered on underwater kingdoms, and while some of these have an impact, they did not succeed in making the character for whom these kingdoms were created...relevant.  Aquaman is not defined by underwater kingdoms.  If he were, he'd be no better than Black Panther, an incredibly negligent ruler, spending so much time hanging out with other superheroes who notably have no interest in this faraway responsibility.  Some creators have also tried to make his human origins interesting, to little avail other than extremely temporary visibility.  Aquaman, unfortunately, is a character who can be summed up in an entirely dismissive fashion: he talks to fish.  Johns decided to ignore all that and instead reveal a side of the character that speaks to his strengths in a far empowering way, as a guy who had an entirely separate group of allies who link his undersea world to surface concerns in ways that are still being explored nearly a year into the series and a rivalry with his archnemesis that has turned decidedly personal.  Aquaman has always been portrayed as the victim in his stories (which is really weird), but Johns is turning him into a multifaceted and even culpable figure.  Like Wonder Woman, he has always been a character who was supposed to be important just because he supposed to, and during Flashpoint last year their common significance as warriors was made plain.  Yet being a warrior isn't enough.  But being a tragic hero might be.  This is a good issue to see how Johns is accomplishing this.

Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #2 of 4 (DC) What's absolutely fascinating about this issue has a connection to Alan Moore's story that could almost have been entirely forgotten in the midst of hype for being the best superhero story ever told.  Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner remind readers of the social significance of it, too, as they outline the insidious plot to turn drugs into the next big consumer hit, a habit that doesn't need to provide anything lasting in order to create its own constant demand.  Laurie is just beginning her career as a costumed crimefighter, something she never thought she'd do, but it's another habit, in effect, that she can't overcome.  If there's a message, it's that one of these habits is productive and the other isn't.

Cobra #15 (IDW) Longtime fans of G.I. Joe will know that one of the big developments in the late 80s continuity was the revelation that Cobra Commander had a hidden son named Billy.  Billy hits Cobra in a big way this issue, only he's not the boy we used to know, but a man, who in the opening pages sounds suspiciously like the Cobra from earlier issues, the ones trying to sell the organization to the public.  If he's not evil, then he certainly has an ego, and could have easily been used by his father's allies, possibly without him even realizing it.  It's this malleable sense of morality that allows this series to remain so brilliant.  You know who the bad guys and the good guys are, but they're both forced to exist in a world where it's not so easy to keep those distinctions separate when something needs to be done.  This is not a G.I. Joe book in any traditional sense.  You don't even need to care about G.I. Joe to enjoy it, and I'm certain that you don't even have to have read the several other dozen issues behind this one to start enjoying it now.

Justice League #11 (DC) I don't think Graves will go down as one of the most memorable villains in JLA history, and I don't think Geoff Johns thinks so, either.  He's a catalyst, a means to an end, to make a point, that this team is not perfect, even though its reputation in the book and as a comics commodity suggests so.  Readers from any number of eras will tell you that the Justice League is fallible.  The different and the distinction Johns is making here, and certainly in this issue, is that even a membership comprised of its most iconic members has visible chinks in its armor.  The underlying story from the beginning of the series has been Wonder Woman's journey, and it's fair to say that Johns has been doing more than other writer of the team to make her relevant.  Her relationship with Steve Trevor, which takes a considerable step this issue (but not one you might be thinking of), has been at the center of this significance, but the big splash is her fight with Superman and Green Lantern.  It's something of a cliche to try and help out a character's reputation by putting them in a situation like this, but for Wonder Woman, she's rarely had a moment like this.  In recent years she's come to be defined more closely as a warrior than ever before, but Johns has managed to channel that into someone who can be irrational and rational at the same time.  She can be reasoned with.  (It's also amazing that Johns is willing to show Green Lantern as so vulnerable in these pages, considering he's gone a good way into making the character his signature work in comics.)  The Shazam backup continues, and can it really been only the fifth installment?  Johns and Gary Frank are owning the former Captain Marvel as no one since Jerry Ordway.  I don't think he'll be overlooked again anytime soon.

Nightwing #11 (DC) The subplot of Detective Nie that Kyle Higgins has been sowing throughout this run is starting to come to a head.  I don't know why Nightwing seems to elicit these kinds of characters (Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson previously worked similarly extended angles), but I'm glad it's another thing that Higgins is most assuredly doing write in this book.  There's plenty of story threads to keep reader interested this issue, including a visit from Sonia Branch, the daughter of Tony Zucco (the mobster responsible for the death of Dick Grayson's parents), who turns our hero down for a loan due to the established risk involved; a conversation with Damian, loaded with references to recent comics that also helps Nightwing riddle out some detective work; and the villain Paragon, who's there to exploit as much as possible.  Guest artist Andres Guinaldo is hit-and-miss, especially with Dick's hair for some reason, but the coloring makes a good contrast of Nightwing's basic gray and the new red swash.  All in all, this is a book that rewards regular readers.

Now here I'm going to talk about some recent new series from cult favorite writers Jonathan Hickman, Brian Wood, and Brian K. Vaughan.  Hickman's been famous recently for his work with Marvel, notably Fantastic Four, but he originally made his name on creator-owned titles for Image.  Wood is known for Demo and DMZ, while Vaughan is probably the biggest name of the bunch, having crafted Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, two long-running titles that had readers invested in the unusual lives of their central protagonists.

I read these issues last week:


The Manhattan Projects #3 (Image)
from Hickman


The Massive #2 (Dark Horse)
from Wood


Saga #3 (Image)
from Vaughan


Of the three, I'm most impressed by Saga.  Hickman is known for having a wild imagination, but cycling it through either historical figures or established characters (sometimes blending the two, as in S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Manhattan Projects is not so different from this mold, even though it seems to have a little more breathing room than usual.  As the title implies, it deals with the development of the atomic bomb, and Hickman's idea of the greater things going on around it.  He gets to play with Einstein, Roosevelt, and a wacked-out version of Truman (if this is even close to truth, my history teachers have a lot of explaining to do), among others.  This particular issue handles the actual deployment of the bomb that resulted, and so it's fun (insofar as that bomb was "fun") to read Hickman's depiction of these events, although there's little indication of what exactly he's doing to build a larger story.  Maybe I need to read another issue.  The Massive, meanwhile, appears to be part-Wood and equally parts Dark Horse reviving Arvid Nelson's brilliant Zero Killer, but in a decentralized form.  For this reason (because I loved Zero Killer), I'm perhaps less inclined to view Massive as a singular creation, even though it's a book (like all three of these titles) that has a considerable amount of buzz around it, mostly because of Wood's involvement.  Saga, meanwhile, is something totally new from Vaughan, at least as far as my experience goes.  Maybe his Runaways was similar.  At any rate, this is a story set on an alien world, and Vaughan has embraced its otherworldliness, almost to a degree that I must ask you to see for yourself.  It's like Neil Gaiman doing Pixar (Coraline only gives you so much of a clue).  If you ever sampled Grant Morrison and had a hard time figuring him out, Vaughan might have provided an adequate window into that kind of storytelling, like Seaguy but without being a parody of superhero comics.  This one demands to be read again.