Reading Comics 228 "FCBD 2019"

What I love about Free Comic Book Day is that it's basically the best shot most companies have at being visible to the average reader.  For the folks showing up just for free comics, it probably won't make much of a difference.  For the folks who show up to comics shops every Wednesday or in any other sense on a regular basis, it's a chance to find out what companies outside of DC and Marvel are doing (because let's face it, for the average fan, it's still basically just DC and Marvel).  I don't know how many sales these free comics result in (for a long time, I bought Atomic Robo comics in part because Red 5 always included it in their FCBD releases, when Red 5 had Atomic Robo in its slate), but it says a lot about the companies, what they're willing to release for the annual celebration. 

Here again is what I got, and what I thought after reading through all of it:

Animosity Tales (AfterShock)
Marguerite Bennett's comic is basically the flagship of AfterShock, another would-be Image in a crowded indy scene.  What was more interesting than the story featured in the issue was the summary of the series to date, which reads a heck of a lot like The Walking Dead.  So if you want your zombies to instead be animals, this is the comic for you.

Bloodshot (Valiant)
I've been a supporter of the Valiant relaunch for years (not specifically from the start, but around the time The Valiant came out).  While I don't love everything they publish, I still maintain that this is the discerning superhero fan's best bet for a coherent modern landscape to follow, the Ultimate version of the classic Valiant characters, the condensed version of what the New 52 attempted.  And Bloodshot has been a part of it, and been a favorite of mine, for years.  This take is from Tim Seeley, who's been an underrated star of the modern comics landscape whether in his DC work or elsewhere.  But Seeley's take on Bloodshot feels hollow compared to what Jeff Lemire was doing.  Lemire pulled off Bloodsquirt!  He wants a Bloodshot that's actually the complete reverse of Lemire's, all action and no character study.  I thought that was the best part of the modern Bloodshot!  Anyway, also included is the latest chapter of the Rai saga, Fallen World, which reads a lot better.  It's from Dan Abnett, who could use a breakout solo project. 

Deadly Class (Image)
I'd sampled the series previously, but this particular issue was a brilliant way to highlight what makes it truly awesome, and I'm glad all over again that there's a TV adaptation, which I hope to catch.  Remender's a particularly busy creator, the hardest working concept engine not named Mark Millar, who takes all manner of risks with high concepts. 

H1 Ignition (Humanoids)
Here's Mark Waid's latest attempt at a startup.  Dude's been at this for twenty years now, and...has yet to find one that truly sticks (or as with Boom!...sticks with).  This one's all about straining for modern credibility, the social awareness that actually...turned off a lot of Marvel fans.  Maybe it works better with new characters.  I don't know.  But this preview is somewhat poorly put together.  I have little faith of it sticking any better than his previous efforts.  I have no idea why Waid strayed so far from what he did so brilliantly in the pages of The Flash.  Maybe someday he rediscovers that spark.

Interceptor (Vault)
Donny Cates is another firecracker in modern comics, but one that's working equally hard at mainstream (with Marvel) as with his personal projects.  Since this isn't a well-loved era for Marvel, fans haven't really rallied around him, but I like to see what he's doing.  I like his storytelling in this issue.  He's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

 

Punchline (Antarctic Press)

Here's the best comic I read from the bunch!  It's a superhero book from other than DC/Marvel, which is always an interesting prospect.  There will be great material done elsewhere (see: Valiant) and there will be shoddy stuff.  This looks like great stuff.

Part of what makes it look great is the artwork, naturally.  Matthew Weldon seems like the closest I'll get to classic Stuart Immonen, before he started adding detail into his clean forms.  There's some rough work in there, but Weldon is like Patrick Gleason more interested in shadow than warm figures, a moody look at its best that the touch of reality Bill Williams seeks in a script that looks more to the human than superhuman.

I like the details Williams includes, like the fact that the Black Arrow is actually two people sharing a costume to evade seekers of secret identities.  (I'd read that comic, too, thank you!)  It feels like a genuinely fresh take, just when you thought you'd seen everything.  There's a collection already available with the rest of the story, which I think I might actually track down (read: order online).  And I guess there's more new issues coming. 

Stranger Things (Dark Horse)
As I've said, I haven't been initiated into the Stranger Things cult, and this comic didn't make me consider reconsidering.  Fortunately there was also a Black Hammer backup, with Jeff Lemire presenting the "Cabin of Horrors," clearly an homage to House of Mystery and such.  Eventually we meet Jack Sabbath (familiar to Black Hammer fans?), who has just discovered that his backstory might be different than he previously thought.  Cowritten by Ray Fawkes, in defense of whom I sort of exiled myself from Millarworld a few months back.  Also discovered that Mice Templar artist Victor Santos has been working at Dark Horse recently, with a long-running espionage comic called Polar, which might be worth checking out.  See, Free Comic Book Day???  Success.

Year of the Villain (DC)
Again, not technically a FCBD release, but for the second year in a row a cheap DC comic meant to promote upcoming stories.  Scott Snyder is the brains behind a new Underworld Unleashed/Forever Evil-type event headlined by the bad guys.  I really wish Lex Luthor could just stay the antihero he's done so well in stories like Final Night and Geoff Johns' Justice League, but he keeps getting dragged back into villainy.  This is one of those stories where "he's finally gone too far."  More significantly, Brian Michael Bendis signals he may be interested in working on Batgirl comics, with a tale that finally allows Barbara Gordon to remember she was pretty badass as Oracle, too.

Star Wars Day: May the 4th Be With You (Marvel)
Again, not technically a FCBD release (but part of another of the things last Saturday was culturally).  Besides some previews for various comics, there are some creator interviews, including one spotlighting Kieron Gillen's creation of Doctor Aphra, whom he repeatedly describes as a Star Wars version of Indiana Jones.  (Yes, yes, yes: Harrison Ford played both Indy and Han Solo, but Gillen's point is that Aphra collects artifacts...but with a more nefarious agenda in mind!)  On the whole, I'm quite happy that Marvel got the rights for Star Wars back from Dark Horse (other than Dark Horse's brilliant adaptation of The Star Wars), as it sticks much closer to film material and less creating whatever the hell it wants.  I just can't decide if Aphra is closer to the Dark Horse mentality than Marvel's...

Digitally Speaking...33 "Deadly Class"

via Image

Deadly Class #1 (Image)

From 2014.

The last time I read an issue of this comic, I kind of got what Rick Remender was doing.  But I was also kind of lost.  Deadly Class is not a series you can jump into the middle of, as it turns out.

But when you start at the beginning, you will probably have a much better idea of what it is.

A mix between Mark Millar's Wanted, Grant Morrison's Invisibles, and Brian Michael Bendis's Ultimate Spider-Man, Deadly Class starts out much more grounded in the real world than any of them, detailing the life of a lost youth suffering from suicidal depression at having been left completely behind by the rest of the world.  There's a fair bit of real world details stuck in, specifically Reagan's America (although it's not really a period story otherwise; this could just as easily be set in the present).

Then he's approached by representative of a special school.  Not for mutants.  For students training to become assassins.

And, more or less, the first issue ends.  And suddenly, I wouldn't mind reading more of Deadly Class.  I had this issue in my comiXology cue when I read the other one I've sampled to date sometime last year (#6), but such was my reaction that I didn't feel particularly compelled to seek out more of the story at that point.  

This is something of a personal project for Remender, a comics veteran who lately has done some off-the-wall and yet compelling work with Captain America.  I'd recommend Deadly Class as an ideal way to see how much potential Remender really has.

As for any digital comments, as always I think this is a format that exposes the limits of current lettering capabilities.  In normal mode at comiXology, it's hard to read Deadly Class properly.  This is not a knock against Deadly Class itself, but, as I said, against the whole lettering profession.  You would certainly think, along with all the digital inking and in some cases even art, lettering would not even remotely be a problem today.  But incredibly, it is.  Considering how many psychopaths we have reading comics (and watching things) on tiny devices, I can't imagine how this has not been a problem already addressed and corrected at this point.  Seriously.  

And yeah, this is not a problem one has with physical comics.

Reading Comics #130 "Bull Moose Grab Bag IV"

Local physical-things shop Bull Moose has recently changed the way it sells comics.  It remains to be seen whether it will be selling comics much longer.  But until recently it sold new comics and then slightly-less-new comics in grab bag form.  I like grab bags, and on the whole I liked what I got in these Bull Moose grab bags.  This is the last official Bull Moose grab bag, though I get to continue this sub-feature in future editions of this column as Bull Moose Bargains.  More on that when it happens!  Until then, the contents of the last grab bag.

Batman '66 #12 (DC)
The comic based on the '60s TV series that has swung back around to being culturally tolerated remains amusing for what it is.

Bravest Warriors #21 (KaBOOM!)
One of those cartoons clearly inspired by the success of Adventure Time.  Bull Moose Grab Bag did me wrong in giving me two copies, thanks to there being two different covers for some reason.

Chew #42 (Image)
I read some of the earliest issues of Chew, liked them well enough, but it was also fairly easy to...not read Chew anymore.  When John Layman wrote Detective Comics I was actually more impressed with him.  In his own sandbox, Layman is free to do what he wants...and I don't know, I guess he just wants to screw around.  These days I compare this kind of comic to Atomic Robo, and bottom line is, Chew doesn't seem as inspired.  Weirdo concept though it sports and the ability to exploit said weirdo concept, Chew is ultimately fairly throwaway.  Hey Layman, feel free to jump back into the mainstream.  Or find something more interesting to do with Chew.  Apparently he's one of the Batman Eternal writers, but does that really count?  I guess I'll keep myself posted...

C.O.W.L. #2 (Image)
A few years back I was ready to consider myself a pretty big fan of Kyle Higgins.  These days I'm wondering what happened.  Something that bothers me is that he often has a co-writer.  This is not in itself a bad thing.  He first burst onto the scene with Scott Snyder as co-writer (Batman: Gates of Gotham).  Given Snyder's reputation these days, that's not a bad association at all.  (Even Snyder had a co-writer tagging along when he worked on Severed for whatever reason.)  With C.O.W.L., Higgins is working alongside Alec Siegel.  I have no idea.  What I've read of this project, Higgins has been getting all the credit.  As far as the need for co-writers goes (it should be noted even Geoff Johns worked with James Robinson in his early years, and Robinson worked with a co-writer, too, for part of Starman), I'm wondering if this is something he really does need.  Maybe as a kind of focusing lens?  Because as far as his Nightwing ended up going, I wonder if he needed such a lens, and just never got one.  C.O.W.L., like the final issues of the Nightwing run, is set in Chicago.  There's been speculation that this is, in fact, what Higgins would have done if given the chance in his mainstream effort.  Well, maybe?  Anyway, regardless of my personal feelings on its (co-)writer, this series has gotten a fair bit of hype.  "C.O.W.L." is short for Chicago Organized Workers League, otherwise known as the World's First Superhero Labor Union.  That's interesting and all, and this is even a period piece, for whatever reason.  Maybe I just can't figure Higgins out.  Maybe I'm approaching this wrong from the start, but as with my Higgins experience in general lately, I...just wish there was as much on the page as I wish there was.

Deadly Class #6 (Image)
Speaking of Image series from writers I really wish I could like as much as it sometimes seems I should, this one's from Rick Remender, who's recently impressing me with the scope of what he's doing in Captain America.  Apparently, Deadly Class is a personal project for him.  I wish I could say I loved it and totally understood how it's so important to him, but I can't.  This and C.O.W.L. are the kinds of disappointments I think I probably need to reread.  Maybe I will.  (I generally don't do a lot of that.)

All-New Doop #3 (Marvel)
Peter Milligan is a writer I feel guilty for not liking.  He's like the advanced stage of where Higgins and Remender could be years from now.  Milligan has been around for years, a kind of junior member of the British Invasion who helped forge the early years of Vertigo.  His most recent prominent work was nearly the first two years of Red Lanterns, a series I've recently fallen madly in love with...under the auspices of Charles Soule.  As for what Milligan is doing now (not meant as a pun, but there's that, too), I...guess this is related to his earlier X-Statix, a cartoony corner of the X-Men franchise that was much cult-loved at the time.  But Doop reads like instantly pointless drivel.  I'd read Chew over this.

The Flash #32 (DC)
And what is this, a trend or something?  Another writer I wish I liked is Robert Venditti, who happens to have been the guy who took over Green Lantern following the historic near-decade Geoff Johns run.  I haven't read too much of that.  Sometimes I wish I did, because I've liked what I have read.  But then I read something like this.  I have great history with The Flash.  For some reason that history ended with the New 52 relaunch.  No disrespect to the early run, because I just never really got around to reading it, probably because I was disappointed that Johns ended a pre-New 52 run prematurely following the excellent Flashpoint event.  So I wish I liked what I read here.  But I just didn't.  The best material is still pretty weak, Barry Allen bonding with the new version of Wally West.  I don't know if Veditti's heart just isn't in this title, but it just reads so tepidly, a very far cry from Johns or Mark Waid.  For a Flash reader who wishes The Flash would always be a must-read, as it certainly was under Waid and a slightly lesser extent Johns, this is not just disappointing, it's kind of disheartening.

Justice League Dark #32 (DC)
I actually like this series.  I'm waiting to be really wowed by it.  Hollywood was wowed enough to option a movie based on it, so there's that.  Frankenstein is usually featured in it, but not this issue.  As referenced during his recent appearances in Batman and Robin, he's been on a sabbatical.  We've got Zatanna, Deadman, and we-have-our-own-titles-too guys Constantine and Swamp Thing.  J.M. DeMatteis is a writer I greatly respect, but he doesn't always write to potential.  He's someone who's better than the lot I've been grappling with in this column, but I sometimes wish he'd be better.  If this were a truly dark series, maybe that might be the case here.  I don't know.

The New 52: Futures End #8 (DC)
Futures End badly wants to be a new 52.  I know, with wording like that, I could easily confuse you.  52, as opposed to the New 52, was the 2006-2007 weekly series that helped prove possible the modern viability of such a format.  I loved it.  I mean, I loved it.  (It ranked fourth in my list of all-time favorites.)  I've been trying to make comparisons between Futures End and 52 since the newer title launched, based on my sporadic experience with it.  Maybe if I read it every week my opinion would be different, but I just don't see it as hitting the mark quite as truly as its predecessor.  This is disappointing, too.

...Yesh.  With all these disappointments, is this because this was all part of the final Grab Bag?  The world may never know...