Unbeatable Comics From Last Week

Here's a quick roundup of the comics I read last week:

Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures #4 (Red 5) is another fine entry in this anthology series, with a highlight of the continuing Bruce Lee serial, in which the late martial arts master admits recruiting Robo as a pupil because it's hard for a guy like Bruce to find a decent sparring partner.

Batman and Robin #11 (DC) sees Damian continue to work his way through past Robins by confronting Jason Todd (a rare appearance by the Red Hood outside of his own book) while the Terminus gang brands people with the bat symbol.

Before Watchmen: Minutemen #2 of 6 (DC) features the team coming together for the first time and probably sees Darwyn Cooke give more characterization to Silhouette than any previous appearance.  (Perhaps more notable given that Before Watchmen collaborator J. Michael Straczynski did a version of the character in his own epic The Twelve.)

Charmed #22 (Zenescope) makes a little more sense than the last issue for readers who haven't exactly been following the series regularly, especially as concerns the return of Prue and her relationship to the Charmed Ones.

Demon Knights #11 (DC) moves the story along more than some issues, with a huge push from King Arthur and assist from the first appearance of Morgaine La Fey.

Peter Panzerfaust #5 (Image) moves the boys along to Paris, where they discover their Nazi troubles are far from over.

Saucer Country #5 (Vertigo) may be the best issue of the series so far, showcasing the cleverness of Arcadia as she kills two birds with one stone, learning more about what happened to her during a hypnotherapy session without letting on what she actually remembers to a duplicitous psychiatrist.

The Shade #10 of 12 (DC) demonstrates our antihero doing pretty much the same thing against the enemies who set Deathstroke against him in the first issue.

Swear to Bendis, I'm Not Becoming a Convert

BATMAN AND ROBIN #9 (DC)

I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of this book recently for some reason, don’t know why…Anyway, this particular issue is the newest one and is a tie-in with the “Night of the Owls” event inspired by events in Scott Snyder’s BATMAN, and features young Damian Wayne getting to exert himself against a Talon and a bunch of army officers he’s attempting to rescue, one in particular who has become a target of the Court thanks to some unresolved business from centuries ago, the American Revolution to be precise.  If anything, Peter Tomasi helps make clear that the Court of Owls is basically a Freemasons type of secret society in this episode, even if he kind of stumbles in the few scenes not dominated by Damian (any scene with Damian is dominated by Damian).  Nothing overtly connected to previous issues occurs, but there are subtle connections.  Patrick Gleason will be back, and hopefully the regularly scheduled storytelling will also resume next issue.

CHARMED #21 (Zenescope)

My sister is kind of obsessive about CHARMED, the TV show, though she enjoys the comic book, too.  My access to the comic was severed last year when I backed out of my subscriptions with Midtown, so I jumped at the opportunity to resume access to this book, along with some others.  My sister seems content to read the trade collections (there are now three), so I’m actually wondering if I should even pass these individual issues to her anymore.  The comics tend to be a little less about the Halliwell sisters and more about the big stories, which I suppose might simply be a difference of the mediums.  Another difference?  Prue can finally return, as has apparently happened.  Prue was the sister played by Shannon Doherty, who left the TV show at the end of the third season, never to be seen again.  Hopefully Paul Ruditis nails this opportunity.  The current big story?  The sisters have lost their powers, while everyone else in the world now has them, and disaster has resulted.  And yes, this is when Prue returns.

DEMON KNIGHTS #9 (DC)

I’ve been investigating exactly the background Paul Cornell enjoyed before entering the exciting world of comics, and it was usually summed up with, “worked on DOCTOR WHO.”  Turns out he started out as a fan who got to write some fiction, book-form, and some of that led to work on the actual TV version of DOCTOR WHO, and he’s also got a few pieces of original fiction out there, but it may be safe to say that his name has gained greater recognition as he’s begun his career in comics.  Since coming to DC, Cornell has truly blossomed, certainly in his Lex Luthor arc in the pages of the pre-New 52 ACTION COMICS (must-read material), and now in the pages of DEMON KNIGHTS, a fantasy series that functions much in the same way as his acclaimed CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI:13, sadly cut short before its time.  DEMON KNIGHTS is what that series would have been like had Cornell been given complete creative control (one of CB&MI13’s most notable arcs was a tie-in with SECRET INVASION), and in many ways feels like what Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY would have read like as an ongoing series.  Most of the characters involved have their own agendas, but their common destinies (as of this moment, since characters like Jason Blood/Etrigan and Vandal Savage are active in modern times as well) are currently involved in the continuing legacy of Camelot.  The famed wizard Merlin is a virtual stand-in for Walter Bishop from FRINGE, which I find utterly fascinating.  It’s Cornell’s ability to make anything fantastic to be relevant that marks him not only to be one of the best writers in comics today but arguably a threat to be the best writer of tomorrow.  If that’s not enough reason to read him now, I don’t know what is.

GREEN LANTERN #9 (DC)

The secret origin of the Indigo Tribe is exploded by Geoff Johns in this issue, and as usual, he manages to tie it in with the intricate mythology he’s both inherited and greatly expanded on within the Green Lantern mythos.  If you’re a fan, you know who Abin Sur is, and how he helped set BLACKEST NIGHT into order; now it becomes clear that he was looking past those events, too, and that’s why he helped create the Indigo Tribe, under circumstances and with a partner you’ll have to read this issue to fully enjoy.  Suffice it to say, but this is probably the most important issue so far in the New 52 era, and is probably the one that finally links the work Johns was doing previously with the soft reboot that “War of the Green Lanterns” helped usher.

MOON KNIGHT #12 (Marvel)

One of the things referenced in the letters column substitute from BRILLIANT #3 was this wrap-up of the series Brian Michael Bendis improbably agreed to do, handling one of Marvel’s problem children, a character who’s had multiple chances at ongoing series and pretty much failed at all of them, for decades now.  Bendis, so far as I can tell with this issue, seems to have concluded it makes sense to make Moon Knight actually seem crazy and isolated, given that his tenuous grip on reality has always suggested that.  If I’d known this earlier, I might have sampled the series earlier, but for many years now, I assumed Bendis was a Marvel stooge the company’s fanboys embraced simply because he was ubiquitous and seemed to write every other title for them.  Granted, a lot of his Avengers work (and there was an avalanche of it) definitely seemed to support that theory every time I sampled it, but there was other stuff that suggested he was more competent than that.  BRILLIANT nailed that for me, and so now I’m free to approach Bendis from a new perspective.  This is one of my rewards.

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #10 (Marvel)

This is another.  I sampled the first issue of this second reboot of the Ultimate Spider-Man adventures (the first to not feature Peter Parker), featuring the introduction of Miles Morales as only the third new Spider-Man in Marvel history (I’ll give you a nickel for naming the other one, and I’m not referring to clones who may or may not answer to the name Ben Reilly).  It’s amazing how vividly inspired Bendis has been by his long tenure with Ultimate Spider-Man.  This alone has secured his status in comics history, and I’m kind of hitting myself for not reading another Morales adventure until now.  But this is a good one to jump back into with, as he finally learns the truth about Uncle Aaron, which is another of those brain-numbingly obvious superhero stories that few writers have actually done it.  Treat yourself and discover it for yourself.

WASTELAND #37 (Oni)

Another issue!  Concluding “Under the God,” Michael and Abi finally get to leave the Cross Chains town of Godsholm, sort of like THE BOOK OF ELI but with less Denzel Washington, and shev off back along their journey to A-Ree-Yass-I, along with Gerr, who will soon help all of us better understand what exactly is going on.  This is an epic adventure that may finally find its audience once it concludes so that there can no longer be any doubt concerning its brilliance.  Christopher Mitten may be working on other stuff, too, but this will be his legacy.  

Escape Velocity

Okay, so you’ve already slogged through my so-called “Comic Book Memoir,” so you know that I have technically quit the business of reading comics. What further relevance can I have for those who want to read about new comics? For starters, I have not given up completely, even though it’s financially unfeasible to continue the habit as I’ve have pursued it throughout my regular experience. I will continue to read, in altered ways, in a more limited capacity. For instance, I will become the very monster I had once vowed to fight with my life. I will “wait for the collections.” I also work at a bookstore, so I’ve got a limited selection of first-run issues still available. I’ve got DC represented pretty well there, GREEN LANTERN, GREEN LANTERN CORPS, THE FLASH. (Okay, so I’ve got Geoff Johns pretty well represented.) ACTION COMICS is another, which I’m thrilled about, because I love what Paul Cornell has been doing, and that big anniversary issue is coming up. I can still keep tabs on Tony Daniel’s BATMAN (which is a bestseller there, so I need to be fleet of foot, if I want to read it, if not buy it). There are a few others, and of course some that aren’t DC.

But that’s the future, that’s potential and possibility. Back in the present, I’ve made a new vow, and so far so good. I haven’t gotten a comic book in over a week (woo!), whether in a store or via a shipment from Midtown. The subject then, for this week is my last-for-now trip to a store, Escape Velocity in downtown Colorado Springs. I made it in the full knowledge and after canceling all my subscriptions with Midtown. Though I still had one final shipment awaiting me, this was technically how my comics habit came to an end.

I should backtrack a little. I can’t completely acknowledge my motivations for this decision without mentioning the inciting incident. I live in an apartment. I never truly appreciated the differences in postal service from carrier to carrier until I moved to Colorado Springs. I had tremendous experiences, growing up in Maine and in Burlington, MA, with postal carriers, met some really good ones, even had some really good relationships and even friendships with them over the years. When I moved into this particular apartment, however, and started depending on Midtown to read comics, I crossed over the postal matrix, and finally experienced the flipside. Not all carriers are created equal. Unfortunately, it seems most of the carriers here come from the Dark Side. Still, not to dwell too much on the negative, since it was one of Midtown’s random decisions to ship with UPS that allowed some hooligan to steal the package mere hours before I could have taken it into my door that really concluded the series of unfortunate events that seem to have gone hand-in-hand with packages and this apartment, that finally convinced me that peace of mind and security were more important than spending money I did not technically have. So, thank you, hapless carriers, hooligans, and assorted other rogues. Your apathy and devilry helped me do the right thing.

Anyway, the comics I will be writing about this week come from that fateful trip to Escape Velocity, and they all come from either the third week of January or the first week of February, 2011, the former replacing the essentials from that lost package, and the latter representing the fact that I made the trip on a Wednesday (it was both convenient and appropriate).

BRIGHTEST DAY #18-19 (DC)
In many ways, this is the title I most regret not being able to follow, because there are really only a handful of issues left, and I was really enjoying it. As a huge fan of 52, which quickly became one of my all-time favorites, not because of the weekly gimmick, but because the four writers (Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, and Greg Rucka) proved why they were and are some of the top writers working in comics today, I had followed DC’s subsequent efforts at successor projects. COUNTDOWN was the closest until BRIGHTEST DAY (and probably reads better in collections, where it more appropriately takes on the air of a quasi-event, an old-school one, anyway, and maybe that’s why so many current fans found it hard to enjoy). Johns and Pete Tomasi have absorbed the lessons well, and have made BRIGHEST DAY a mix of the two, following semi-obscure characters (which both previous books did) as they embarked on extremely personal quests (which 52 did) that have wide-ranging implications elsewhere (which COUNTDOWN did better; Booster Gold rediscovering the multiverse is not the same as the Fourth World smackdown). These two particular issues help to point out the further direction of the book, especially the surprising act of killing off both Hawkman and Hawkwoman, well in advance of the conclusion (an act similar to the death of Osiris; while lacking in visual impact, infinitely more significant). Then Aquaman finally gets a huge moment, probably the first huge moment he’s ever gotten, building on a lot of his lore, and suggesting that there’s always been more potential in this character than any writer seems to have ever bothered. I would suggest anyone who hasn’t been reading this book to either start now, or join me later in the collections.

CHARMED #5 (Zenescope)
This is a book I’ve been reading/buying partly because I’ve been passing it on to my sister, who’s a huge fan of the TV series. This issue seems to bring about a premature end to the Source arc that helped launch the comic, but in fact plays right into further developments. My sister said she wonders how this would have played out on television. I figure the arc would have been a single episode, and that’s probably it would make most sense. Of course, in comics, this represents pretty much a collected edition (I can’t call it a trade paperback, because there’s almost as strong a push these days for hardcovers), which is a strange way to equate the material covered in TV and comic book formats. But let’s move on, shall we?

DC UNIVERSE ONLINE LEGENDS #1 (DC)
A comic book that’s basically supposed to be a promotional gimmick has absolutely no right to be this good. From Tony Bedard and Marv Wolfman (with art this issue by Howard Porter) comes an extraordinarily compelling story to launch the series about how Lex Luthor comes to regret making a bargain with Brainiac, both as he sets the deal up and then prepares to pay for it, after they’ve actually won. Clearly a story that could not be told in regular continuity, and is all the better for it. Seriously, you need to read this one.

G.I. JOE: COBRA #12 (IDW)
I have no idea why this book has such low readership, and apparently even this landmark issue was virtually ignored, because it has, since the original mini-series, been among my absolute favorites, a psychological thriller that has followed Chuckles’ efforts to explore the mysteries of Cobra, most of the time tracking the activities of the Paoli brothers, Tomax and Xamot. Well, this is the big climax (which I’m hugely grateful to have been able to recover), in which Chuckles finally plays his hand, and assassinates Cobra Commander, an event so unprecedented that IDW will actually (and not just by necessity) be reshaping its whole slate of G.I. Joe books around. Christos Gage, who has been helping shape this book from the beginning, will be moving on, but Mike Costa, the best G.I. Joe writer since Mark Powers (who worked over at DDP; IDW got the rights to the franchise, and trust me, we lost the other great G.I. Joe book of the modern era) will continue on.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #56 (DC)
Tony Bedard also works his magic here. Bedard has quickly become one of the best writers working in comics today; this may be the platform where he is finally noticed. Since taking over from Pete Tomasi, he has been writing one huge event after another, first rewriting the Alpha Lanterns, and now summoning the Qwardians back into Green Lantern lore, with the Weaponer, who forged Sinestro’s original yellow ring, becoming a formidable adversary, and probably the only guy besides Hal Jordan capable of provoking him. This is the kind of work Tomasi consistently aspired to in the book, but only really reached when some big event necessitated a crossover. Bedard can’t seem to help himself.

IRON MAN #500 (Marvel)
I’m not a regular reader of this book and/or character, but I’d heard enough intriguing things about Matt Fractions’s plans for this issue that I had to read it. Unfortunately, it seems to fall into the same trap so many other Iron Man stories do, in failing to completely grasp the potential of the character. Much of Fraction’s work seems to be inspired by the Jon Favreau movies, but without a singular and concentrated vision, that sort of approach doesn’t work in comics, and the bigger the scale Fraction attempts to handle, the less he’s able to grasp it. The story spans several generations of Starks, and maybe it holds more significance either for those who have been reading the book, or the ones Fraction hopes will be reading later, but it just feels desperate to me, a grandiosity assumed but not earned. (I’ll have more such Marvel thoughts in two weeks.)

IRON MAN #500.1 (Marvel)
I don’t really get why Marvel is doing these issues, especially with the potentially confusing gimmick with that numbering. Are they assuming regular readers don’t need to read them? That’s my underlying assumption, anyway. The good news for IRON MAN, though, is that I bought another issue all the same. This one reads better, even if it dips into the incredibly obvious pool, the one that’s rarely actually explored but dipped in whenever convenient, that Tony Stark used to have a drinking problem. Fraction acquaints readers with Stark’s history via an AA meeting. One of the things I hate about Marvel is that every writer is forced to accept every single that every other writer before them ever wrote, dating back decades. It’s literally all canon. No matter how little everything actually gels, it’s all got to fit in. In the retconned context of most of Stark’s history being explained by either his relapses or recoveries, this story really makes sense. Of course, I was reading a little of Iron Man around CIVIL WAR, and I know that his regular comics did everything but actually work on his character. It’s disingenuous to suggest to new readers that they can expect intimate explorations of Tony Stark. That’s the last thing on the mind of a regular Iron Man writer (which again, made it so ironic that the best parts of the Iron Man movies had everything to do with Tony Stark and very little to do with Iron Man) Anyway, still a comic worth reading, good timing, all that.

What sucks about the pilfered package is that it also contained some stuff I would have written about elsewhere in this blog, as part of the regular Quarter Bin column. It contained a few issues of DEATHSTROKE: THE HUNTED and one of GREEN LANTERN: MOSAIC. I really wanted to read those comics. And some day, when I either find or order them again, I will have another opportunity. But it probably won’t be soon. Still, I have plenty of comics to talk about, and plenty more to read. But that’s a matter for the future.