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.

Reading Comics 193 "A skip week can be so dangerous..."

Covered this edition: Dark Knight III #5, Blood Feud #1, Steve Rogers: Captain America #2, The Rocketeer at War #4, We Are Robin #12, X-O Manowar Annual #1, and Heavy Metal #280.

Now, the whole point of this edition is that it comes from last week, which was a skip week for DC Rebirth, which meant there were no Rebirth titles published.  I shouldn't even have gone to the comic shop, right?  Well, I did go, and ended up finding stuff anyway...

Dark Knight III: The Master Race #5 (DC)
Admittedly, I haven't made a great effort reading the complete story, but it's always been worth checking in.  It's interesting, this issue, as Batman has been cast as a target the Kryptonians who are running amok (they escaped from the Bottle City of Kandor) trying to be gods consider him an element that needs to be eliminated in order to complete their conquest.  Batman, whether in Miller or Azzarello's voice, describes fear as his greatest ally.  "Fear is why I don't kill.  There is so much that I'm afraid of -- that we all are -- While you?  Just look at you, all -- Fearless.  You Don't stand a chance."  That reads like classic Dark Knight.  The depiction of other characters is excellent, too.  The Flash observes about Superman, "I know you were raised as a human, but every time you say, 'Oh my god,' I want to hand you a mirror."  In that particular sequence, Barry, whose feet have been crushed earlier, has been immobilized, but now he's using his speed to keep up with the Information Superhighway (remember that term?).  Who has ever thought of the Flash that way?  We see Aquaman riding majestically on a giant sea creature (I know there are plenty of people who will never lose the impression of him as a joke, but images like this are made to show us he's anything but).  But the greatest line of the issue belongs, again, to Batman: "I've never wielded an angry mob as a weapon before."  The issues ends as Batman realizes he really can't engage in the fight physically.  But it's okay, because Superman is fighting at his side again.  This really does feel like a necessary closing chapter in the Dark Knight saga.

Blood Feud #1 (Oni)
I got this one (the issue was actually released last October) because artist Drew Moss frequents the comic shop I've been going to, and I actually saw him drawing pages for this series (his editor was calling him to complain about how long it was taking).  I figured I owed Drew at least one issue.  (He just recently scored a new assignment: Jay Faerber's Copperhead, which I've sampled as part of my comiXology adventures, and I can vouch for as a result.)  The writer of Blood Feud is Cullen Bunn.  Having read this, I think I can finally contextualize Bunn for myself: he's another Scott Snyder.  Snyder first rose to prominence with American Vampire, which Blood Feud resembles in several ways, such as tone, and the presence of, well, vampires.  I've never read Bunn's Sixth Gun, the series he made his name on, but his mainstream work has always struck me as unwieldy, as if it were an ill-fit.  And maybe that's exactly what it is for him.  Not everyone is meant to write superheroes. 

Steve Rogers: Captain America #2 (Marvel)
The all-important follow-up to Steve Rogers, Agent of Hydra unexpectedly spells out exactly what's going on, and I can see where people who had no idea what was going on before last issue might not have seen this coming, because even I didn't, because it just seems too simple: it's that Cosmic Cube running around as a little girl, and Red Skull (of course Red Skull).  The issue reads better than the last one, possibly because it's so heavily centered on exposition (I'm not a reader bothered by that sort of thing) and as such the more cartoony elements of characterization are kept to a minimum (although, somewhat unfortunately, the Cosmic Cube girl suffers from it).  It's just unfortunate that this big idea was conceived, as can so easily be resolved, because the bad buy's plans always fall apart, which makes it all the more perverse to have Red Skull declaring that this time he's finally prevailed.  Yeah, right.  I'm not convinced that Nick Spencer is a much better writer than Ed Brubaker (I eventually soured on that run, although conversely acknowledge that it's probably Captain America's best-ever), but at least he gets right to the point.  Brubaker had a whole arc before he got around to explaining the Winter Soldier.  Points for speed, Spencer.

The Rocketeer at War #4 (IDW)
As an Atomic Robo fan, reading this sort of thing is kind of old hat at this point, but the Rocketeer is one of those superheroes that stands out from the pack of everyone outside the Big Two.  He even had his own movie in the '90s!  Although he's a thoroughly retro character, set in the era of WWII, Rocketeer actually dates only to 1982.  His helmet evokes Robo, but it also looks like Iron Man.  This is the character you've been looking for if Iron Man's actual comics have left you disappointed after all those movie appearances, because until recently Marvel never thought to duplicate that.  Marc Guggenheim, a screenwriter who dabbles in comics, and whom I discovered in this medium from his Resurrection, published at Oni, is the writer for this story, which centers as much on heroics as Rocketeer's effects on the ladies.  There's also a prose story, and in IDW's listings for other recent published works, Mark Russell's Apocrypha Now, a follow-up to his God is Disappointed in You.  I became a big fan of Russell from his Prez over at DC.  I will read this stuff eventually.

We Are Robin #12 (DC)
Catching up with this final issue, the group disbands after one last adventure involving a rogue member who's been convinced to participate in burglarizing Bruce Wayne, who's seen a faceless enemy of the people.  Alfred comes to the rescue, and Duke Thomas ends his days as a quasi Boy Wonder.  Some interesting observations to close out the series.

X-O Manowar Annual #1 (Valiant)
Speaking of finally figuring out Cullen Bunn, I think I finally figured out why Robert Venditti was tapped to replace Geoff Johns as the writer of Green Lantern in the New 52, because what Johns did for that franchise, Venditti did for X-O Manowar, and Valiant in general, establishing a bold new vision on which to hang further adventures across a variety of concepts.  It's just, I don't think Venditti was at all prepared to do it all over again.  Hey, not everyone is, especially when he's never left X-O, where he contends with alien armor being sported by a Visigoth who ended up as a superhero on Earth but is seen as a villain by the aliens he got it from.  The full scope of the concept is on display in this annual.  I'm glad I finally had a real look at Venditti's work.  As much as I've gotten into Valiant in the last few years, I never did get around to X-O, because I was disappointed with what I saw in X-O's early issues, and underwhelmed by Venditti's later Green Lantern work.  That's why it's always worth giving something additional chances.

Heavy Metal #280
Kind of the American version of 2000AD, this is a longstanding mature readers comics anthology magazine.  The reason I finally read an issue is because the new editor is Grant Morrison, who is also a contributor.  His story "Beachhead" is an ironic commentary on the relentlessness of military campaigns (aliens come to Earth when life is still at the bacterial phase, and the commander isn't satisfied with that as a reason to rethink his strategy).  The rest of the material is certainly interesting, in a variety of ways.  The one that strikes my fancy the most is the first installment of Mozchops' "Salsa Invertebraxa," which features some sweet poetry.  Besides that, there's Morrison's introduction, in which I have to face, all over again, the full brunt of his personality, which is always more complicated than I sometimes give him credit for.  The idealized version of Morrison, like how anyone imagines their idols, is someone much like themselves.  But Grant Morrison really is pretty wild, although he's not as gonzo as he can sometimes seem, if that makes any sense.  He's someone who's earned the confidence to voice his thoughts exactly as he thinks them, is all, and maybe isn't afraid to cater to the audience he's currently addressing, such as Heavy Metal readers...This feels like an ideal format for someone like Morrison, who's interested in the full possibilities of his chosen creative medium, with few restrictions when the story calls for it.  Not every story here is for mature readers, but none of it is particularly mainstream, without going the full underground that you might otherwise expect from material of that nature.  At any rate, I found myself capable of reading pretty much the whole thing without too much skimming, which is more than I can say for a lot of anthologies.

Quarter Bin 74 "Drax, foiled again..."

These actually were bought for a quarter each, thank you very much.  The local haunt frequently puts damaged comics aside with steep discounts, so most of them this time are younger than is usual for this feature...

Drax #2 (Marvel)
From February 2016.
Being, perhaps somewhat uniquely, a fan of comics as well as professional wrestling, I can probably give insight into a CM Punk comic better than you might find elsewhere (were you so inclined).  Punk famously ditched the WWE after feeling he wasn't getting his due, even though he was one of the company's top performers, and somewhat irreplaceable, as the last few years since his departure have helped prove.  I have a complicated perspective on Punk.  On the one hand, he truly is as good as he thinks he is.  But on the other, his ego is probably more massive than he can support.  Strange combination.  But my sympathy for him has only increased since his departure from the ring.  I'm definitely Team Punk.  When he started writing comics, I was instantly intrigued, because it's a well-kept secret that comic book writers often intermingle their personal thoughts with their fictional ones (especially when they leave a series).  I quickly found I wouldn't be disappointed.

And yet, I wasn't sure I wanted to make a commitment to his first regular assignment, Drax, so I avoided sampling it until now.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about.  Punk is definitely reflecting on his own life here, but not in a way that gets in the way.  Drax has a series because Guardians of the Galaxy made him more famous than he'd ever been.  And this series follows, more or less, with the character as established in the movie, which is a good thing because his was a fairly minimal role in the movie, and so there's plenty of room to explore (unlike, say, Rocket or Star-Lord, or the Guardians in general, but I digress).  Anyway, Drax is a unique situation in a comics era that's desperately grasping for unique situations (making them less and less unique by the minute), and again, Punk is ideally suited to explore it.  Nominally, Cullen Bunn, who never met a concept he couldn't suck the life out of, is there to help guide Punk, because Marvel probably had the same concerns I did, but I sense little Bunn here (again, a good thing).  So this was a very happy reading experience.

Superman: Lois & Clark #1 (DC)
From December 2015.
Another comic I was hesitant to read was one of the several Convergence spin-offs.  Fans cooled almost instantly on Convergence (I thought it was a pretty great success, both the mini-series itself and the creative freedom of the side projects), so maybe these spin-offs were never going to be the big hits DC thought they'd be (just as copying "Batgirl of Burnside" made that less significant, and led to DCYou being the failure it seems to have been).  Lois & Clark is a continuation of Convergence: Superman, with creators Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks along for the ride.  Jurgens famously was one of the writers DC tried on the New 52 Superman itself, one of the writers who famously failed to make it anywhere the success Grant Morrison's Action Comics was, at least in terms of garnering any kind of buzz.  Jurgens wisely seems to have used Lois & Clark as a commentary on that, and the New 52 as a whole.  And in case you didn't know, it also continues the Superman era last seen at the end of the '90s, the last time DC was ready for a major overhaul (technically, the early millennial Superman was not a reboot, but it really was).  The series also features Superman's son, who will be playing a significant role in the DC Rebirth era.  The comic itself is a fine read (and looks fine, too, thanks to Weeks, who knows how to translate Jurgens better than Jurgens has for years).  The issue outlines the whole concept, how the '90s Superman ended up in the New 52, and stood out of the way of history.  Like Drax, makes me wish I hadn't been so dismissively originally.

Action Comics #47 (DC)
From February 2016.
The Greg Pak era in Action Comics was kind of completely overshadowed.  It turned out to be for those who didn't want the Geoff Johns, or Gene Luen Yang, Superman.  But it's not really much to write home about.  This is from the "Truth" period, and features a villain who kind of has a valid perspective (seemingly ripped from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice).  But it seems so pedestrian compared to the Johns/Yang Superman.  The artist is Georges Jeanty, whom I originally encountered in the pages of '90s Superboy, and who later resurfaced in the pages of Dark Horse's Bffy the Vampire Slayer comics.  But his work here is completely unrecognizable, which is a shame, because I liked his work from that time.  Equally baffling is Frankenstein's appearance in the issue.  It's not really dwelt on.  It's a visual element and nothing more, probably explained elsewhere, but surely disappointing for someone randomly stopping by.

Wildcats 3.0 #1 (WildStorm)
From October 2002.
This older issue is from the last attempt to keep WildStorm a viable, separate entity within DC once t became an imprint here instead of at Image.  The characters continue to pop up (they had supporting roles in Futures End, for instance, plus random efforts at ongoing series like Grifter and Midnighter), but it'll never be the same.  Speaking of completely different, this third volume of Wildcats was part of the Authority era, in which the company helped set up the Ultimates era, which helped set up the Avengers movies.  But clearly the original intent was something, again, completely different.  The idea was new maturity.  Joe Casey writes the corporate Wildcats in a way that sheds new light on just what America looked like at the turn of the millennium.  No wonder we've been struggling with our financial health ever since, because that was the era in which corporations really did seem to take over.  I mean, the '80s were the Greed Decade, but they had nothing on the '00s.  I think we all see that now.  A little too late, perhaps, but maybe it's because of things like Casey's fairly incomprehensive buzz speak heavy Wildcats.  Amusingly, Casey explains the evolution of the team in an essay, and it really doesn't help explain how Wildcats 3.0 makes sense from that any better than the comic itself, which ignores pretty much everything Wildcats except for Grifter.  I guess that makes sense...

Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead #1 (DC)

writer: Van Jensen, Justin Jordan, Robert Venditti, Charles Soule, Cullen Bunn (script: Jensen and Jordan)
artist: Ethan Van Sciver, Martin Coccolo, Goran Sudzuka, Chris Cross, Pete Woods

The biggest thing Geoff Johns did for Green Lantern, other than greatly expand the mythos and it importance to the DC publishing schedule, was establish the event trend, from "Sinestro Corps War" to Blackest Night.  When Robert Venditti replaced him as torchbearer, clearly this trend was retained as the common denominator between them.  

Venditti's latest is also his biggest.  This time the New Gods are involved.  Jack Kirby's iconic if popularly-challenged creations were immediately cast as intrinsic to the New 52 thanks to Johns' own opening arc in Justice League, and they've been working their way back to the forefront thanks to the "Robin Rises" arc in Batman and Robin.  The second and more prominent salvo in this campaign likely to end with next year's Crisis event is Godhead.

It's a great way to go, too.  Venditti and the whole crop of current Green Lantern writers (although the script is from Green Lantern Corps and Green Lantern: New Guardians writers Van Jensen and Justin Jordan specifically) have figured out a way to reimagine one of Johns' major contributions to the mythos: the idea of the White Lantern.  

Now, Johns created a whole spectrum, but for the purposes of Blackest Night and its followup Brightest Day he posited that the combined might of all the rings created the White Lantern (the Green Lantern version of "one ring to rule them all").  The current holder of this title is Kyle Rayner in New Guardians.  I haven't been keeping tabs on any of the series besides Charles Soule's Red Lanterns, so I had no idea that Kyle's been missing from action, as far as everyone else is concerned, for a year (the last writer, Cullen Bunn, is responsible for Sinestro).

But the thing about the White Lantern is that he's in possession of the Life Equation.  For as long as Darkseid's been rampaging through comics, he's obsessed over the Anti-Life Equation.  So it's interesting to see the good gods led by Highfather pursuing its opposite number for a change.  Except this is hardly good news for the Lanterns!  (I also had no idea what was happening with Saint Walker these days.  Apparently he's lost hope, which is a bad thing for a Blue Lantern!  More complications for him, as well as the perennially-hapless Mogo.)

It's good for the New Gods to be approached from a fresh perspective, and Godhead does exactly that.  Highfather has likely never been this vital (except maybe under Kirby himself), and he's surrounded by familiar and new figures who are equally compelling.

The good news is that if you have no real experience with Green Lantern or the New Gods, this issue serves as an excellent primer, too, catching up on concepts and characters with lightning precision.

The art's interesting too.  I love the design concept for the Godhead covers.  The interior here features new Green Lantern work from Rebirth artist Ethan Van Sciver, who shares the workload with a number of others.  There's also some splashes of that indy style that Marvel's been exploiting in series like Hawkeye and Moon Knight.  It's unexpected and effective.

Green Lantern has long been a favorite comics sandbox for me.  I feel guilty for having all but abandoned the sandbox with the departure of Johns.  Fortunately his successors know some fun games to play.

Sinestro #4 (DC)

writer: Cullen Bunn
artist: Rags Morales

via Comic Vine

That quote on the cover comes from Green Lantern #20, the final Geoff Johns issue, which I reread recently in The End collection.  It's a standout line and immediately eye-catching to be quoted for the new Sinestro series.

Tiny problem, however, in that it's not hugely relevant in the comic itself.

I really wanted that to happen!  A whole issue where Hal Jordan and Sinestro hash out their relationship, something Johns worked on a lot during his last few years, a major legacy of the New 52 to date.  Instead, we get an issue with Sinestro...demonstrating his strong will, and Hal popping up, officially, on the final page.

It's just not what I wanted to see.  Cullen Bunn is one of the "it" writers at the moment, and seems to be getting a lot of these the-main-character-is-usually-known-as-the-villain comics assignments lately.  But I don't think he's to par with what Johns was doing.  It's great that this series exists, and certainly with the perfect synergy that came to Red Lanterns later in its run with the debut of Charles Soule as writer there's always hope things will work out, but it's disappointing that they didn't get it right first shot, especially given that Johns, who is such an important DC guy, didn't merit getting Sinestro done right first shot.  Even Larfleeze was pitch-perfect (although sadly, I didn't read it any more faithfully than anyone else, and that one's gone now) from the start.

The artist is Rags Morales, who has a lot of big credentials to his name, including Identity Crisis with Brad Meltzer and Action Comics with Grant Morrison.  Fans sometimes question his work.  I don't think there's any cause for that here, although it's such a different setting than I personally am used to seeing Morales tackle that most of what I know about his work slips into the background.  This is mostly a good thing, I guess, but it's always odd for an artist who has a distinctive style to do work that isn't immediately identifiable to that style, except in the odd image here and there.  But on the other hand, his presence on art duty in Sinestro must surely be considered a vote of confidence in the series from DC.

Sinestro #1 (DC)

writer: Cullen Bunn

artist: Dale Eaglesham

via DC Infinite

Ever since the launch of the New 52 in 2011, Sinestro's profile has been raised significantly.  After all, he was technically the title ring-bearer of Green Lantern at that time.  Geoff Johns used his final few years with the franchise focused in part on the one-time villain.  An ongoing series for the character has been all but inevitable, but it's still a little surprising that it actually...happened!

The franchise received a significant expansion in the relaunch.  One of the more debated titles from the start was Red Lanterns, which is still running and arguably stronger than ever after a recent tie-in with Supergirl.  Larfleeze ran for nearly a year.

And now there's Sinestro.  In a lot of ways, it seems more unlikely now than in the fall of 2011.  When Johns left with Green Lantern #20, he put the character back in the box, made him pretty distinctively villainous again, putting this series more in line with Red Lanterns than than one of its emerald brethren, or even the isolated antics of Larfleeze, which sadly had no real fan support.  One of the knocks on Red Lanterns from the start was that it was a curious decision indeed to focus on a pack of villains, which is still unusual in comics despite a steady stream of Thunderbolts and other such efforts.  It still seems inconceivable that The Joker existed in the '70s (for about as many issues as Larfleeze forty years later), and no doubt you're barely aware that even happened.  With good reason.

But here this is, and so what's there to say about it?  I may be biased.  I find Sinestro to be fascinating, with or without a green ring, yellow ring, what have you.  Comic book characters subsist in large part on healthy egos, but there are few to rival Sinestro in this regard.  Most of what has been done with him in recent years, almost exclusively by Johns, is to provide nuance to such a reputation, make him sympathetic.  

When we last saw him, Sinestro had gone into exile, and that's where Cullen Bunn finds him.  I have little experience with Bunn.  I really only know him from a Deadpool comic I read earlier this year, and as the writer of The Sixth Gun, the Oni series that isn't Wasteland.  And I wasn't impressed with Deadpool that time.  Surprisingly or not, Bunn settles into Sinestro seamlessly.  The panel at the start of this review is a perfect encapsulation of the character, the comic, and Bunn's understanding of both.  The ego's still there, but the guy has been humbled (as much as possible, anyway).

Since this is a series and not a one-shot, however, you can be sure the story picks up considerably from that point.  Lyssa Drak, the blue-skinned disciple from Sinestro's largely-abandoned yellow-ring-fear-based corps, shows up and soon enough he powers up again.  With a yellow ring.  And by the end of the issue, Sinestro's daughter, Soranik Natu (who debuted in Green Lantern Corps: Recharge and has been an off-and-on signature character since), shows up.  And that relationship is still complicated, to say the least.

The other thing the panel displays is the art, obviously.  The artist is Dale Eaglesham, who is making his return to DC after five years.  His signature work had been Justice Society of America, with Johns.  I'm not hugely familiar with his work in the meantime, but if anything, he has significantly improved.  The cover isn't so impressive and not really particularly indicative, but the stuff inside is truly exceptional.  I don't know how much credit colorist Jason Wright deserves for this.  It's similar to Mike Mayhew (who knocked The Star Wars out of the park) or Mike Perkins (who similarly stood out in the pages of The Stand) at this point, and as such repositions the entire series in a different light.  You don't have to approach it as a fan of the Green Lantern franchise.  It's now a kind of epic all its own.  You don't even need to have read much of Sinestro previously.  Everything you need to know is recapped within this debut issue.

So this is a heck of a thing.  I have no idea what its chances for long-term survival are, but if Bunn and Eaglesham, or creators of similar quality and motivation, remain attached to the series, Sinestro has unexpectedly become one of the better titles DC has to offer.  The character always had this potential, so it's good to see it fulfilled.

Deadpool Kills Deadpool #4 (Marvel)

(via Comic Book Data Base)

writer: Cullen Bunn

artist: Salva Espin

I don't get Deadpool.  There, I said it.

I mean, I get Deadpool.  He's Marvel's officially sanctioned representative of irreverence.  If you want to read a comic that takes superheroes about as seriously as every other scene in The Avengers, then this is your guy.  He's been a cult star in the making for years.  He even showed up in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and was long rumored to have a spin-off of his own in the works.  

It never materialized.  

I'm going to argue that the reason was pretty clear: Deadpool means absolutely nothing except to comic book geeks, and he only means something to comic book geeks who apparently love a character who has no point except to be a complete lunatic.  In an X-Men context, he makes the least sense of all.  Tellingly, the last time the comics tried to make that happen was a long time ago, when he was inexplicably paired with Cable for years.

He would make much more sense in an Avengers context, especially one that, like a lot of recent Avengers comics, seems like it was written directly for fans of the movie.  I would read the Deadpool out of a Brian Michael Bendis Deadpool comic.  That's probably the only way I'd deliberately read a Deadpool comic.  This was, along with a number of other comics I've been writing about here recently, part of a grab bag.  I did not knowingly purchase a Deadpool comic.  Why would I?

This comic is a good reason to ask that question.  Even if I had read the three previous issues, I'm certain I still would not know the answer.  In the mind of Deadpool fans, the character is a legend.  There have been so many random Deadpool adventures in the past few years, you'd think Marvel thought so, too, but I would assume it's more a case of striking while the brand is hot.  Because once it cools, this guy will once again slip into obscurity.  Can't we just Howard the Duck him already?

Basically, like a lot of those other comics, Deadpool only exists in this story to play off other stories, because there's no story potential any writer has found yet in the character otherwise.  This is like the event book of all meaningless event books, Deadpool battling countless alternate versions of himself.  Countless Deadpools spouting countless versions of the same gibberish.

If it's supposed to be funny, I don't see the humor.

The writer is Cullen Bunn, who has for a few years now been one of the indy writers with the biggest buzz around him, thanks to his Oni series The Sixth Gun.  I haven't read it.  I never really found a compelling reason to, other than that there is constant buzz around it, and thus more work for Bunn elsewhere, like in this comic.  But if Deadpool Kills Deadpool is any indication, I don't think I've been missing anything.