Reading Comics 227 "Ascender, Heroes in Crisis, The Green Lantern, Batman, DCeased"

Ascender #1 (Image)
The sequel series to Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen's robot saga Descender, has already been compared to and/or described as Star Wars.  I'm very glad to see the story continue.  At some point I figure I will add the complete collected editions to my library.  Among all the comics I've read from Lemire, it's my favorite.

Batman #70 (DC)
Tom King seems destined to anger and/or fascinate readers (see below!).  His most recent arc in the series featured a series of nightmares.  I've been adding every collected edition to my library, and have yet to be disappointed in reads or rereads.  I haven't read the complete nightmare sequence; that'll follow in the collected edition (see above!).  This issue sort of wraps it up and begins a new arc.  Batman marches on Arkham!

DCeased #1 (DC)
Tom Taylor, who had some excellent material in the most recent Batman collected edition (Tyrant Wing), and has been toiling away in digital-first comics for probably too long, finally gets to seize the spotlight in a comic I think has been wrongly characterized as the DC equivalent of Marvel Zombies.  But then, I haven't read Marvel Zombies and this is only the first issue of DCeased.  But I like what I see.  Besides Taylor, the coup here is art from Trevor Hairsine (Divinity).

The Green Lantern #7 (DC)
I've kind of officially become a trade-waiter.  I haven't made an effort to read an issue of this Grant Morrison comic (!!!) since the first one.  Issues like this are a surefire way to ensure I will get the trade.  Morrison spends most of it in a literary disposition as he casually rewrites Green Lantern ring lore.  Great issue.

Heroes in Crisis #8 (DC)

Well, it's official.  Wally West did it.  It's a Tom King comic, so of course it's controversial.  A website I follow posted a bad review, which I'm inclined to take with a grain of salt, as it's admittedly a Flash site, and of course Wally West was the Flash, at least solidly in the '90s (most famously in the Mark Waid run, and how Geoff Johns first made his name writing Flash comics before solidly redefining it with Flashpoint). 

Anyway, the site argued that King, who's made his career in comics drawing on his war experiences, somehow goofed the issue, which is clearly a PTSD story in an event comic about PTSD.  Another site I follow gave the issue a poor review claiming it definitely betrays King having altered his original plans for Heroes in Crisis, which does have a documented history of change (first solicited as Sanctuary and as seven rather than nine issues).

Clearly I disagree with these negative reviews.  I'm a fan of King, but I'm not a reader who uncritically accepts things.  Every new project (whether a new comic, or a book, or a movie, or music, etc.) has to justify itself.  Being a fan of a creator or franchise is merely a way to guarantee my interest. 

King's thought process is clearly spelled out in the issue.  He even goes back over ground he covered previously.  This issue is mostly about explaining exactly how Wally did it.  The Flash site claims the issue is a poor representation of PTSD.  I respectfully disagree.  I think everyone who suffers from it (or from anything) believes their suffering is unique.  That's Wally's perspective throughout the issue.  Believing a predicament is unique is intrinsic to human nature; believing any condition is unique is intrinsic to the species.  We're often entirely bound up in our egos.  But in pain it's worst, as we become despondent, and the pain only encourages itself to continue. 

Wally reaches a breaking point.  Interestingly, King actually explains it by expanding on Flash lore, the idea of the Speed Force and what it takes to use it, which has always been Wally's hallmark.  His ability to command the Speed Force became Waid's ticket to a series of great stories.  And yet, in his new circumstances Wally has been cut off from everything he once took for granted, the family Waid ultimately left him with.  Even Barry, his famous "Trial of the Flash," endured considerable mental torment (with or without the intervention of Eobard Thawne).  He loses control for a moment, and accidently kills a handful of heroes.

In panic, he deliberately takes more lives.  At this point it becomes a Parallax situation.  Parallax was the fear entity that took over Hal Jordan following the loss of Coast City.  A momentary lapse of willpower compromised Hal for years.  This is really no different.  A Wally already suffering makes a terrible decision.  That's it.

There's one more issue.  And, folks, this is comics.  Wally West will run again.  He will be a hero again.  And regardless, we have those great Waid stories.  Hopefully, if nothing else, Heroes in Crisis will lead readers to read them for the first time.  They're among the all-times great.  I've listed "The Return of Barry Allen" as my all-time favorite in the past.  One story can't change that.  Why in the world would it?  Could it? 

This would be one thing if King were just mucking around.  But King doesn't muck around.  He tells compelling stories, that challenge, that go well beyond the scope other comic book writers typically conceive.  Heroes in Crisis is no different.  Fans heaped praise on King for The Vision.  DC clearly expected that for Mister Miracle.  He delivered, regardless of fan response, and he has delivered again with Heroes in Crisis.  This guy's one of the all-time greats.

Reading Comics 207 "August 2017 LCS Trip"

Here's a brief look at my latest check-in:

Descender #22 (Image)
Remains a favorite, even if I'm not reading it all the time.  The metaphorical knife that was stuck into poor Dr. Quon so brutally early in the series just keeps getting twisted.  In a lot of ways, that makes this his story almost more than Tim's...

New Gods Special (DC)
Shane Davis (Superman: Earth One) turns in a thoroughly competent look at Orion.  He seems to come off best when he's in the spotlight (Orion, I mean).

Nightwing #26 (DC)
Tim Seeley continues extending Grayson's legacy, and Dick Grayson's legacy in general, bringing back Huntress into the fold.  I know fans like to imagine Dick and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) will one day officially declare a relationship, but between Grayson: Futures End (one of my all-time favorite comics) and the Nightwing/Huntress mini-series from two decades ago...my money's on them.

Revival #43-47 (Image)
Speaking of Seeley, I decided to finally have a look at this, and as it turns out, these are the final issues of the series.  While he's working from a familiar playbook (the most famous recent example being The Walking Dead, which you may have heard of), Seeley injects enough into the intricacies of character dynamics that Revival reads as a distinctive piece.  I'm sure anyone who'd read the preceding 42 issues will take away a lot more, but it was surprisingly easy to get into, with or without the short recaps inside the front covers. 

Reading Comics 168 "7/8/15 - One of the Best Weeks of the Year"

Covered this edition: Batman #42, Bloodshot Reborn #4, Civil War #1, Descender #5, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency #2, Earth 2: Society #2, Providence #2, Saga #30, Spider-Verse #3, Star Trek/Green Lantern #1, Star Wars: Lando #1, and Strange Fruit #1.

To say last week was disappointing for a comic book addict like me would be an understatement.  This is not to say that there nothing worth reading, but nothing that interested me, nothing from my pull list and, well, nothing else that I wanted to read.

So this week was an embarrassment of riches.  Very good (or very bad) for a comics addict.  I ended up reading a bunch of stuff I hadn't read previously, or continuing to read stuff that I don't typically read, or enjoyed a bunch of new stuff, and of course a bunch of stuff I've been reading all along.

Kicking off is Batman #42 (DC), the second issue of the Bat Gordon era.  Visually the costume in full armor still looks and will always look ridiculous, and Gordon's military haircut looks ridiculous, but...this is still the best Batman Snyder has ever written.  It's the first time he's allowed himself full control, and it shows.  The fact that astute readers knew Bruce Wayne was never dead, and Snyder has shown every willingness to play along, keeping him in every issue "post-death," including the issue with "his death" after "his death," this is what I've been waiting for.  This is an exercise in patience.  Obviously this is an exception, and if it hadn't been hugely popular from the start, DC would never have stuck around this long.  But thankfully this is an instance where popularity eventually gives way to material justifying the hype.  I don't know how popular this material will be, in the short- or long-term, but I have to imagine, however much longer Snyder sticks around, he will be back to writing Bruce Wayne as Batman, and will be the better for having this experience under his belt.

It's also clear that the villain concept was in part an excuse for Capullo to do a version of Clayface after discovering how well he does it visually in Batman #20 (excellent cover).  I would have maybe capitalized on the horn concept and named the villain Horn (although I guess there are other members of the gang, so there's always a chance, right?).

Bloodshot Reborn #4 (Valiant), meanwhile, is something I picked up because I just read The Valiant, and thought it was pretty brilliant, and because of the timing, which was even better than I thought, I realized this series existed and I should probably start reading it.  It's the first of two Jeff Lemire comics from this week (just as there are two from Charles Soule), and both are winners (just like Soule's).  Bloodshot, as I've explained elsewhere, is a kind of Wolverine, and in this iteration without any of the baggage and written in the full knowledge that it's perhaps is best to just concentrate on what makes him interesting, which is his background and how it continues to impact him.  In The Valiant, Bloodshot lost his powers, and so Reborn is the journey of getting them back.  In this instance, picking up the narrative four issues in (I wanted to try and catch up with whatever was available, but when that meant the latest issue as it was released and only one other plus a few of the preceding series, I opted just for this one) proved no problem at all.  Whatever else has been done in Reborn to date, this issue captures the journey perfectly, exactly as I hoped it'd be from The Valiant.

And even with surprises, such as Bloodsquirt.  Kind of like Bloodshot's Bat-Mite, Bloodsquirt is part of the hallucinations Bloodshot is experiencing as he tries to deal with his situation (the other person he sees is the woman responsible for taking away his powers, but in this scenario, unlike House of M's Scarlet Witch, the late Geomancer was a good guy who was very much Bloodshot's friend, which is why she did what she did, right before she died).  The nanites, meanwhile, that previously gave Bloodshot his powers have been infecting other people, and he's able to absorb them back when he finds these people.  Anyway, the whole thing is pretty fascinating, and executed perfectly.  I'm once again glad that Valiant exists, and that I've found my way in.

 Civil War #1 (Marvel) is one of the many, many Secret Wars spin-offs featuring past notable Marvel stories, whether standalone events or arcs within a given series.  Civil War ought to be polarizing.  Originally, it concluded with Captain America's assassination, but in this version that never happened, and things degenerated to a certain extent as the "Old Man Logan" arc did in Wolverine (which has become another Secret Wars spin-off, not to mention one of the titles announced as becoming an ongoing once Secret Wars ends, and Hugh Jackman's vision for his last performance as Wolverine).

This is written by Charles Soule.  When his exclusive contract with Marvel was originally announced, I conceived of it as a nightmare scenario, not because I had enjoyed his DC work so much, but because I feared Marvel wouldn't know what to do with him.  But as it turns out, that wasn't really the case at all.  If anything, he might be perfectly suited at Marvel, where he can use his best instincts to bring out Marvel's best instincts.  This is in fact a best case scenario.  At DC he was for the most part marginalized.  At Marvel he has the opportunity to become the company's next signature writer, succeeding Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman.  I would be very happy to see that happen.

Civil War, then, is a kind of audition.  I mean, arguably all of these Secret Wars spin-offs are auditions, either for talent or for the continuing viability of old concepts.  In that, Marvel again has an edge over DC.  With Convergence, DC was letting fans know once again (and I do mean once again) that it hasn't forgotten its own history, but it was never going to revive anything.  DC is always looking forward, aggressively, often to the detriment of fans who want desperately to cling to the past.  Marvel isn't like that.  It's often just as merciless as DC when it chooses to change things, but it usually goes out of its way to assure fans that things are going to be okay (unless you're a mutant).  Anyway, it's always trying to do things organically, whereas DC is that pesky genetic engineering that everyone has such a passive-aggressive relationship with.

All that's to say, Civil War, and Soule along with it, is once again a fascinating concept.  The problem Marvel has, despite all its virtues (and I'm convinced Marvel fans celebrate the virtues and ignore everything else, on the whole), is that most of the time, once it's come up with an idea it really has no idea what to do with it.  The idea eventually, inevitably, peters out, or mutates so many times that it become irrelevant.

What Soule accomplishes here, as he usually does, is succeed in once again grounding the original idea without losing sight of how to once again progress it.  The original hook of the original Civil War is played out to its logical conclusions, going full American Civil War by creating separate nations: The Iron, which obviously is led by Tony Stark, and The Blue, which is led by Steve Rogers.  Perhaps with the less comic booky version of Captain America's assassination (otherwise, the opposite of what Brubaker chose to do) in the original in mind, Soule has an attempt by Stark and Rogers to negotiate sabotaged by a gunshot.  This Civil War is not dominated by meaningless battles between superheroes, but as a true war of ideology (which is what Kingdom Come was so good at depicting, but more on Mark Waid later).

It's also nice to see Leinil Francis Yu at work again.  He's been a signature Marvel artist for years.  Linking Yu and Soule is hopefully symbolic of past and future.  Although they could certainly continue working together.

Descender #5 (Image) features one of my favorite story tropes, the exposure of a fraud.  Back in the second Harry Potter book/film, The Chamber of Secrets, I was inordinately fascinated by the character of Gilderoy Lockhart in large part because he was exposed as a fraud.  I mention all this because this issue of Descender answers what I was looking for after the previous issue: Why should I care about Dr. Quon, erstwhile creator of adorable boy robot Tim?  Well, as it turns out, because he's a fraud.

And we learn this through the most grisly means possible.  I guess I haven't read enough Lemire to know how typical this is for him, but as far as Dustin Nguyen goes, I wouldn't have expected it, certainly not in his current mode of looking about as innocent as a comic book can, especially with killer robots running amok (although Driller, who is a Killer, can run amok as much as he wants, as far as I am concerned).

Which is to say, Dr. Quon is tortured, in the most direct way possible: a buzz saw is used to amputate his left hand.  Without no warning, mind you!

So Descender continues to surprise, and this is a very good thing, for a series that is proving more and more that what Saga started, other can and might actually do better.  Which is something fans of Saga probably never expected in a million years, let alone less than a handful of them.  (Luckily, ah, Dr. Quon still has a hand to grab things with.  But he won't be clapping again any time soon...)

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency #2 (IDW) continues to be the most improbably comic book ever (probably), and just as interesting a read for it, featuring the obscure Douglas Adams creation featured in two and a half books and nary a holiday to his credit.  Interestingly, the issue doesn't really try to advance the story at all, but merely let the chaos unleashed in the first one continue.  Although we do get introduced to Kate Schechter, from the second and better Dirk Gently book, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, this time with far less Norse mythology surrounding her.

One has the sense that IDW, and Chris Ryall, totally got that Adams was always a guy interested in nutty concepts and great dialogue, because that's what's to be found here, unabashedly.

And for those keeping score, I offered the theory in my review of the previous issue, which had never occurred to me before (because I hadn't given much thought to Adams's past) that Dirk Gently is another Doctor Who figure for his creator.  And the guys behind the comic seem to think so, too, because (and I can't name which one, because I'm not nearly as big a fan of Doctor Who as I am Douglas Adams) at one point Dirk dons a hat and looks the spitting image of one of the regenerations of Doctor Who.

So there's that.

Earth 2: Society #2 (DC) continues this pocket universe's hot streak.  Conceptually, I've loved the concept since it debuted as one of the second-wave titles in the New 52, because creatively it offered so much potential, which a number of writers at this point have capitalized on.  Convergence gave it the best possible spotlight, but the best possible storytelling has apparently saved for Society itself.

Traditionalists, purists, and other such individuals would probably have preferred the Justice Society of America concept to remain exactly as it was originally conceived, which is what the Justice League continues to represent.  And I think Geoff Johns pushed the original vision as far as it could go.  So, much like the Silver Age gave birth to a new Green Lantern and a new Flash, the same has been done for the Justice Society.

Here's where it truly begins to pay off, because now there is a society, and it's as literal as you can possibly get (in a good way), a whole society defined by the superheroes at its heart, survivors of an obliterated Earth.  And now we see what transpires next.  Terry Sloan, the original Mr. Terrific, has been transformed into a leader of questionable ethics manipulating events to his benefit.  I think there was some resistance to this previously, but at any rate I wasn't reading that material, and as presented here it works wonderfully, and he's in a situation that fully exploits his potential.  The same, hopefully, will be true of all the characters, including Dick Grayson as Batman.  This is a series that is going to take its time unfolding the story, and two issues in that's definitely what's been happening.  There are more introductions this issue, oddly enough, which might as well mean anyone who was reluctant to give it a try before has another opportunity to come aboard.

Because this is suddenly some of the best comics around.  Good storytelling, great art (and I liked Jorge Jimenez's work instantly last issue), and builds on a concept that is becoming better and better all the time.

Providence #2 (Avatar) is part of my continuing efforts to get a handle on Alan Moore.  His reputation has Moore out to be the best writer comics have ever seen, but my own views have been more contentious.  The last time I have him a shot was Avatar's own Crossed  +100, a spin-off of the Garth Ennis series, which to my mind embodied all Moore's worst instincts.

This time, however, Moore seems to be interested in what might actually be his true legacy: creating comics that attempt to be as literally the embodiment of the term "graphic novel" as you can get.  While fans might know him for Watchmen or Batman: The Killing Joke, Moore is also known for V for Vendetta and From Hell, both of which are very much relevant to any discussion of Providence.  When he tells a superhero story, Moore is able to disguise or even distort his best instincts.  But elsewhere he can't.  Even the Guy Fawkes mask can't obscure his real interests.  I have this theory that Moore is actually ambivalent about the comic book medium, or at least superheroes, whatever possibilities they might have, because for him they're nothing but memories he formed decades ago.  When he tells a story about superheroes, it is about them, not with them.  Later, with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he did tell stories with them, but superheroes of a different kind.  The difference is often hard to reconcile.

Anyway, Moore is interested in telling stories about characters interested in what he is.  Providence is a story of the occult, but in the way Stoker's original Dracula was, as something that's stumbled into like The Blair Witch Project.  This is the second issue, mind you, and I didn't read the first, but I'm not sure how much story I missed because of that.  The Alan Moore that exists today will never again have the impact he did in the '80s.  I don't know how he feels about that, but I think he's becoming comfortable with that.  In the '90s he was still trying to recapture what he'd lost by abandoning DC.  Providence might be the first time he's tried to move past that, return to what he once was, before superheroes dominated his legacy.  So if you're interested in that, you might be interested in Providence.

As for me, I found it interested if sedate.  If there must be irreconcilable differences between fans of Alan Moore and fans of Grant Morrison, this is what you would compare, say, Annihilator against.  And as different as the approaches are, for me there is no comparison.  Give me Morrison and Annihilator any day of the week.  Providence, meanwhile, glimpses for a moment the world Morrison's Nameless exists in.  Considering that I wish Nameless were a little less lunatic, maybe Providence actually represents the bridge that might still exist between them...

Saga #30 (Image) is the issue before a hiatus.  Vaughan and Staples have been taking these throughout Saga's run.  As far as I know, it's the first time a comic book has deliberately done this, and it's probably a smart idea.  I mean, other than tradition, there is no inherent reason why an ongoing series  has to publish continuously month after month for the duration of its existence.

The issue also presents a "season finale," which is something I hope future trades will help distinguish (ideally, I guess I'm arguing, there would be distinct collections for each "season," which is to say the material that exists between hiatuses).  For some time now, the story of Alana and Marko has been defined by their being apart.  They finally stumble back into each other's company.

The other major thing is that our helpful narrator Hazel once again reveals something major about what the future looks like, which in this instance (it hasn't always been as artful) is a very good thing, with excellent timing (which is another reason why I think the "season finale" concept should be better emphasized): she won't be returning to mommy and daddy any time soon.

In a way, Saga is taking on the feel of Lost (which Vaughan worked on), recognizing the inherent drama of reunions between characters who have complicated relationships with each other.  For me, this is another very good thing.  Sometimes I struggle to see what exactly Saga hopes to accomplish.  As of now, this is my conclusion, and I'm happy with that.

Spider-Verse #3 (Marvel) is one of the many, many Secret Wars spin-off releases, which I finally decided to be interested in because it's written by Mike Costa.  I was previously reluctant to embrace Costa's Spider-Man material because I feared he'd ultimately amount to about as much as Wasteland's Antony Johnston when he waded into Daredevil material a few years back.  Sometimes my favorite comic book writers don't write for DC or Marvel, and when they do, the results are less than favorable.  But Costa (responsible for so many excellent Cobra stories for IDW's G.I. Joe comics) has been doing his Spider-Man stories for a few years now, and apparently Spider-Verse is becoming an ongoing (as Web Warriors) in the fall, so I decided to quit fighting it.

I want Costa to do the kind of material I love Costa doing, but that's just not happening with G.I. Joe.  I liked Avengers: Millennium, saw the potential to get close to what I wanted, so I decided to give Spider-Verse a shot.  And it seems to be even closer than Avengers: Millennium.  As you may or may not know, Spider-Verse means the Spider-Man version of DC's multiverse, endless variations of the character.  The most famous one recently isn't of Spider-Man himself, but his dead lover Gwen Stacy, who is officially known as Spider-Gwen, and apparently wildly popular.  She's more or less the lead of this issue, too.  Costa has figured out how to present these characters in a group the way he normally does individually in his Cobra stories, focusing on their varying perspectives.  This I was glad to see.

Star Trek/Green Lantern #1 (IDW) is something that could very easily be a bad gimmick, as comics that mix different properties with different timelines must inevitably be (the Star Trek/X-Men crossover, I still have no idea how anyone could ever take that seriously), but as of this first issue, makes perfect sense.  I have no idea what the second issue will have to say about that, but let's focus on the positive!

What's great is that it also gives me a chance to read a good issue of two properties that aren't currently giving me much in that regard.  (As always, I provide the John Byrne caveat; because my local shop doesn't regularly stock his work, I don't have  a chance to read it regularly, unless I wanted to go the digital route.)  I haven't read IDW's Star Trek work with any regularity in a few years, and more often than not discover that I'm not missing much.  Robert Venditti's Green Lantern, meanwhile, is much the same.

This issue takes place in IDW's favorite Star Trek sandbox at the moment, stories set in the Abrams reboot era.  I think it's a mistake to routinely feature Kirk's Enterprise adventures at a time when new movies are still being produced.  Once in a while is fine.  I think there's much more valuable opportunity looking around the corners, which is what IDW used to do, even in the Abrams era.  Anyway, but that's exactly what this comic is doing, too, except with Green Lantern.

Or more accurately, the corpse of Ganthet.  That's a wonderful image.  With all the times the Guardians have been slaughtered over the years, I never imagined such an image would be so impactful, but there you are.  Until Hal Jordan (presumably) shows up on the final page, there isn't even anything to worry about time-wise.  Ganthet could easily have lived to Kirk's time (the Guardian's are the universe's oldest beings in DC speak).  He brought the last rings across the whole spectrum (red, yellow, blue, violet, orange, and indigo) created or embellished by Geoff Johns, and as Kirk's crew examines the corpse and the rings, the comic has ample opportunity to let the reader enjoy the Abrams era for what it is, a distinct version of familiar Star Trek.

Again, I have no idea what the next issue does to affect the continuing viability of the concept, but so far so good...

Star Wars: Lando #1 (Marvel) is unquestionably the one I've been dying to read since I had first heard about the series.  I've loved Lando since he first sauntered into Star Wars in The Empire Strikes Back, and this comic is written by Charles Soule.

As I've mentioned repeatedly, I had great misgivings when Soule went exclusive to Marvel.  His Red Lanterns was the work that made me a fan of Soule, and I didn't want to see it end.  (Well, DC ended it anyway, in the end.)  When I saw Lando announced, with Soule as writer, I saw it as the best chance to see Soule in the mode I knew best from him.

Turns out it's better than that.  Never mind what I already said about Soule above, this one's better than I could have imagined.  It not only features Lando, which is obvious, but takes him in new and unexpected directions.  Now, I'm about to reference Lost again.  Unlike a lot of fans, my affection for it not only didn't go away after the way it ended, but was actually amplified by it.  I loved the whole final season, in fact.  This is relevant, because in Soule's mind, Lando is something of a Sawyer, a con man who given the chance could absolutely go straight.  When we meet Lando in Empire Strikes Back, that's exactly what happened to him, but the Lando we meet is difficult to imagine as anything else.  I read and enjoyed the L. Neil Smith books, too, but they were part of the whole thing that suggested if Lando had ever been any different, he was basically Han Solo.

Which is not very imaginative.  Given a chance, Han would never have become an administrator.  But Lando loves a good con, because a con is basically an opportunity, and that's what con men love.  As a con man, Lando suddenly makes perfect sense.  And his Cloud City buddy Lobot becomes fully alive in the comic, too, plus a number of nefarious associates that make it seem just as if Star Wars: Lando is the first time anyone really tried to do additional Star Wars material.  Because this is exactly what Star Wars was always meant to be.

And so why care about Lando at all?  I liked him because he really wasn't involved in Luke's adventures.  Other than snatching Luke from that weathervane, if you think about it Lando really has nothing to do with him in his two movie appearances.  But this doesn't stop him from being, arguably the most confident man in the room, even when he quickly realizes he's got to switch allegiances.  That deal he strikes with Vader turned out to be a bad idea.  So he flips.  He's the only character to do that, too.  Han, if you'll remember, spends most of his time actively trying to avoid entanglements.  That's what he had in common with the old Lando.  He didn't see the opportunity Luke represented even though it was staring him in the face.  He came back because he grew to care about the boy.  Not Lando.

All of which is to say there was always unexplored potential in Lando.  As of now, there's less.  Or, more.

Strange Fruit #1 (Boom!) is the first installment in the Mark Waid story fans have been waiting for since Kingdom Come.

Whereas Alex Ross has been trying to recapture his Kingdom Come glory ever since (just as the project itself was originally embraced as "the next Alex Ross project" after Marvels, which Kurt Busiek followed up with the similar Astro City), Waid seems to have been incredibly reluctant, which is probably because initially he didn't understand what he'd accomplished.  Before Kingdom Come, Waid was a fan who became an editor who got to write The Flash and then anything else he wanted.  But along the way, he had the opportunity to do something big, Kingdom Come.  Even though fans (like me) claim the best of his Flash was incredibly hard to surpass, that's exactly what he did.  He set the bar higher than anyone could have imagined, and I think like Waid himself, everyone has been struggling to catch up with it.

This was transcendent material, for Waid, for superheroes, and in some ways, comic books in general.  Snooty fans won't even take superhero writers seriously, will try and create mainstream credentials by being anything but.  What Waid realized was that this wasn't by any means necessary.  But having someone like Alex Ross around to make it visually distinctive would probably help.

Here he was J.G. Jones, whose most visually distinctive work previously was on the landmark covers of the weekly series 52, which are among the rare covers to get their own collection.  Jones has gone to some trouble to evoke Alex Ross, but where Ross tends to be minimalist, Jones sketches in the rest.

Otherwise the rest is entirely Waid.  The only other times he's invoked Kingdom Come was to try and recapture the scope of superhero storytelling, which resulted in lesser works like The Kingdom and the Irredeemable/Incorruptible universe.  Strange Fruit is nothing like that.  And considering the charged nature of race relations, and even the status of the Confederate flag (interested observers can make much of the issue's final image on that score), it's beyond timely.  It's timeless in the best Kingdom Come manner.  It's Waid coming home to Boom!, yes, but it's also Waid coming to terms with a part of his legacy he has finally come to embrace, a challenge he set aside and has returned to at last.

At its heart, Strange Fruit is a variation on Superman.  It even evokes Django Unchained.  But it is distinctly its own, too.  It looks at politics, too, by the way, but at its heart is a social landscape at turmoil with itself, trying to come up with easy answers and finding that to be a difficult task.  And suddenly, there's this black man standing there, tearing the whole scene asunder, come to Earth like Superman, in a rocket that crashes in a field, but this is a full-grown man.

Who and what he is are matters for the three remaining issues.  I highly recommend you investigate the results for yourself.  And welcome back, Mark Waid.  It's been a long time.

Reading Comics 164 "Comics from 6/10/15"

Featuring Batman #41, Descender #4, Earth 2: Society #1, Nameless #4, and Saga #29.

Batman #41 (DC)

This whole issue is Scott Snyder doing the hard sell for his new direction.  This can be seen as a good thing, even a smart thing.  But it might also be considered...an acknowledgment that maybe it's not such a good idea after all.  Veteran comics readers know how this game works.  Original character is replaced.  New character attempts to solidify their right to the role.  Original character returns.  Snyder has been playing a little fast and loose with the concept from the start, "killing off" Bruce Wayne while also making it clear (to anyone paying attention) that this didn't actually happen.  And this issue makes that clear, too.  He's sitting in a park on the first and last pages.  Some readers will wonder, is that really Bruce Wayne?  Of course it is.

And that's really Jim Gordon playing at being Batman, too.  Even he pokes fun at the new getup, by the way.  As I said, Snyder plays with fire in the issue.  And it's a little hard to swallow after a while.  I know what you'll say, you veteran of this blog.  I've acknowledged problems reading Snyder in the past.  The conclusion to "Endgame," I said, might have been the point where I put all that behind me.  But I guess it really doesn't work that way.

So this is Snyder trying to do his version of the replacement trope.  As you can see from the above panel, Snyder even gives lip service to all the reasons why this typically happens.  The oddest thing is that there's no one saying Batman needs this right now.  And so why is Snyder even doing it?  Because he's subverting even that part of the narrative?  Hey, since when was Scott Snyder even known as a guy who subverts expectations anyway?

So the issue is actually pretty uncomfortable, and once again I'm telling myself, I'm done with Snyder.  I won't be fooled again!  

We'll see...

Descender #4 (Image)

In strict contrast to Snyder and even to a comic I'll be talking about a little later is this one from the combined genius of Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen.  I happen to love comics, or stories in general, with a lot of moving parts, which is to say components that are being used not necessarily in direct conjunction with each other but that keep things interesting, and this has nothing to do with being simple or complicated, but a general awareness that the creator(s) have figured out what they're doing in an obvious, even if subtle, way.  This means, for instance, what's illustrated above.  What Snyder's done in Batman has sometimes seemed like it wanted to do something like this, but then it turns out most of that was geared toward Batman Eternal and not Batman itself, which is fine and all, but there's a clear difference, and the distinction is that Snyder himself didn't want to affect what he was doing in trying to create an iconic Dark Knight by introducing a lot of dynamic new elements (Court of Owls notwithstanding, or perhaps included).

The above illustrates the difference nicely.  The Driller is somewhat one-dimensional, but serves as a nice contrast to Tim, the little boy robot who's the heart of Descender.  Tim convinces Driller not to be a killer because that would be bad for its future.  But later in the issue, when more mayhem surrounds Tim, he releases Driller from this restriction.  Lemire writes this perfectly, and of course Nguyen is doing the same killer work he's done since Batman: Li'l Gotham.  While Tim's creator Dr. Quon remains about as one-dimensional as Driller, there's also Telsa to be considered.  This is the issue where we begin to find out what makes her interesting.  At first not only as one-dimensional as Driller but as function-centered, she's a reflection of what the series may ultimately be about, breaking away from what others perceive you to be (and hence a sign that Quon will likely receive similar treatment at some point).  Tim himself, especially to Telsa, is just a boy robot programmed to be a "real" boy's best friend.  

Anyway, while Lemire has been careful to keep the action and plot moving, he doesn't do that at the expense of character development, and not just development, but exploration, which is a concept that is usually ignored.  Snyder, for instance, constantly flirts with it, but only in the safest ways possible, which was he allowed himself, and was allowed by DC, to do such a radical Batman/Joker story as "Endgame" ended up being.  But he always backs away.  When other writers aren't backing away, they aren't even attempting it.  Lemire pushes boldly ahead.  Descender, this is to say, is looking like an all-around classic.

Earth 2: Society #1 (DC)

Speaking of character exploration, the thing I liked best about Convergence was how it took Earth 2 and made it better.  When James Robinson started that series, it was about as character-centric as anything DC was publishing at the time.  Convergence came around and took one of Earth 2's characters, Dick Grayson, and pushed him forward.  And interestingly, as with Convergence as a whole, the story clearly didn't end there.  This is to be understood as a hook.  If you care at all about the character, you will want to know how the story continues.  The debut issue of Society keeps that idea going.

The panel above once again is selected for illustrative purposes.  A lot of the successful comics these days are ones that feature a hook for the real world.  The paralyzed Dick Grayson will hopefully join those ranks.  Most of the issue he is in fact running around, but this is also an issue that jumps back and forth in time.  The hook, then, is for the reader to want to continue reading the series, see how exactly Dick reaches the point where he is running around again.  Likely for the same reasons he was in Convergence, because he has some sort of artificial support.  This should be no big problem for someone looking to him as a role model.  Amputees, for instance, are very familiar with this narrative.

So for me, my interest in Earth 2 was absolutely elevated by Convergence, which I believe was one of the main points of the event, and Society is an excellent way to keep that momentum going.

Nameless #4 (Image)

For those two panels (the rest of the page becomes much like the rest of this particular story), Nameless evokes Grant Morrison's own We3, which is one of the best things he's ever done.  The problem is, Nameless is otherwise hellbent on being the weirdest thing Morrison has ever done, The Filth taken to the next level.  Weirdest as in most disturbing.  It's very easy to interpret Nameless as the culmination of Morrison realizing his Batman Inc. collaborator Chris Burnham as being capable of this exact kind of story.

For some comics readers, the weirder is in fact the better.  Comics, in their view, are supposed to shock.  And they have been shocking readers for many decades, sometimes deliberately so.  And Nameless is also a culmination of Morrison's own basic instincts, by the way.

But it's still very hard to enjoy.  I didn't particularly like Burnham in the pages of Batman Inc. either, by the way.  He's a definite proponent of gross-out material. It's sad, because in those panels above, he is clearly capable of stuff that doesn't need to do that.  (Sometimes I assume people who specialize in gross-out do it because they think they need to.)  To link more of this edition of Reading Comics together, Burnham can perhaps take lessons from Fiona Staples.  (I've been leading toward Saga.  There.)  Staples can do a lot of things.  Saga in one sense is designed to let her do a lot of things.  Some of it is explicitly to let her shock the reader.  But it never quite seems as shocking as what Burnham has routinely demonstrated in Nameless.

And it gets in the way, too.  That's the thing.  It distinctly feels as if Morrison is letting Burnham sell most of the concept for him.  And Morrison is routinely guilty of letting the story sell itself rather than bothering to explain it himself.  And when this works, it absolutely works.  But sometimes it doesn't.  And I think that's ultimately why I backed away from The Filth, too, because the more I thought about it, the more I wished Morrison didn't rely so much on the actual filth.  Imagine how much more readers would have hated Final Crisis if it had done that!

So more and more, that's what I think about Nameless.  I wish it evoked Morrison's best instincts more often.  But I also think this whole project is Morrison working his worst instincts out of his system, or simply trying to prove that old image he created of himself was real after all.  Except more and more, I'm convinced it really wasn't.  But what do I know?

Saga #29 (Image)

This issue is something of a bloodbath for supporting characters in Saga.  If this were Star Trek, it would be the redshirt issue.

And there's an image that's not about that at all, and may be one of the defining gross-out images of the whole series, and that's all I'm going to say about that.  Visually, this is about the sum of everything anyone who doesn't like what they've seen could possibly fear to see throughout a whole issue.

Which is also to say, just another issue of Saga.  But really, this really is Saga to the extreme.  And this is definitely one of the odder things about the series.  It doesn't need any of that to be awesome.  Why Brian K. Vaughan has done it at all, and repeatedly, is probably just because he absolutely knows he can get away with it, or because he just really always wanted to see a sci-fi story do it.  There are plenty of people who like their stories like this.  I'm not necessarily one of them.  Usually it's kept to a minimum, one shock per issue, and usually with a bunch of issues that don't feature this sort of thing at all (mostly).

And the thing of it all is that Fiona Staples otherwise has some of the most lush art around, and could as easily sell itself without any of that as Vaughan could write Saga without any of these distractions.  And yes, at this point it has to be considered one of the primary elements of the series, so there's little use complaining about it, especially so many issues into the series, and from a reader who has read a majority of the series...

Anyway, some of this was absolutely inevitable.  And I suppose Vaughan's greater point is that sci-fi that isn't dirty is simply ignoring a great too many realities.  But the long-term potential of Saga is somewhat compromised if this sort of issue will be routine.  Walking Dead does this all the time.  And I've mentioned before that I absolutely think Walking Dead was ruined by making this sort of thing routine.  You can't do a long-term story where the same thing happens over and over again.  After a certain point, the idea becomes routine and therefore pointless, especially if the writer clearly has nothing to say.

The point of this particular issue is that the things that have been happening throughout the series really have been messy, and are doomed to messy conclusions until and perhaps even when the same mistakes stop being made.  We'll see if that's where Vaughan is actually going with this.  The important thing is, the important people are still alive.  For now.

Digitally Speaking...50

This column features an ongoing tour of material I've read from my comiXology account...

The Trial of Atomic Robo (Tesladyne)
From 2015.

For the first time since Red 5 has existed and participated in Free Comic Book Day, it didn't feature Atomic Robo in its release.  No 2015 FCBD Robo.  That may have something to do with the fact that creators Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener are migrating Robo to a new publishing platform, which is to say, he's becoming a webcomic.  Apparently that's how Clevenger started out his career, and so that's where he's returning, and he's taking Robo with him.  Trial is part of this transition, and as part of the festivities Doctor Dinosaur returns.  Atomic Robo is one of many, many comics that heavily feature absurdist humor, and there's no character in its history that better features this instinct than Doctor Dinosaur.  The title is somewhat misleading, since it's in fact a Doctor Dinosaur trial (which rapidly degenerates and is resolved in typical blunt Robo style).  The whole thing explains the appeal of Atomic Robo in one of its more charming aspects, but doesn't necessarily translate the overall thrust of Clevenger's storytelling, which is not always so absurdist.  Still, if you like your comics absurd, then Trial makes an excellent argument for joining the ranks of Robo's fans.

Descender #3 (Image)
From 2015.

The previous issue introduced emotional depth to the story, and so it was a matter of building on that for the follow-up, and not just the apparent death of the lead character...This issue manages to pull off such a difficult task by introducing new depth to the story itself, giving Tim a quest and even additional wrinkles to the existential matters inherent to Jeff Lemire's little robot.  Descender isn't the first story to tackle the rights of artificial life, but it's doing so with uncommon nuance, which once again is down to not only Lemire's writing but Dustin Nguyen's art.  Recently I became aware of the fact that the series launched to a sizable audience, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Fighting Stranger: Chapter Two (HicksVillain)
From 2013.

By the end of Chapter One, we learned somewhat unexpectedly that Stranger's day constantly repeats.  Chapter Two explains how this is an entirely orchestrated spectacle, and how a few citizens of the city Stranger escapes each day band together to change Stranger's day, break the loop, and hopefully one day overcome the mutant overlords that keep them all oppressed.  Fighting Stranger remains a pleasant discovery, filled with excellent storytelling and the occasional killer line, and this second installment enriches the whole thing even as the title character takes a backseat to help accomplish it.  The movie Edge of Tomorrow, I'm told was something like this.  If you were one of the people pleasantly surprised by that movie, you might enjoy Fighting Stranger as well.  The story continues here.

Swamp Thing #40 (DC)
From 2015.

The final issue of the series and also Charles Soule's last work for DC (for however long that lasts; at least Marvel had the good sense to let him write the Lando comic in its Star Wars line), something I'd hoped to read in print, had the local shop order me a copy when it sold out on original release, still haven't seen, gave up waiting for, and so I bought it digitally...I hopped around Soule's run and was always playing catch-up anyway, so it's only appropriate that I'm a little late to the conclusion.  Soule once again pulls off the unthinkable: imagine if Grant Morrison didn't go full meta in Animal Man and instead left it simply at Buddy Baker only realizing he was a fictional character.  That's what Swamp Thing discovers when he hides in the pages of a book.  By the end of the issue, he's seen reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is a novel about cyclical life that eventually ends.  It's clear that Soule parted with Swamp Thing reluctantly, but he also recognizes that above all else he was part of a whole tradition, and that regardless of what happens in this issue, Swamp Thing's story continues.  It's a fitting way to go, with far more grace than creators tend to exhibit, taking the ego out of the proceedings where it's far more common (even though this is usually pretty enjoyable to read) for the departing writer to weave some clever metaphor about why it's such a bittersweet if not outright bad development.  I may lament DC's loss, but it's not as if Soule hasn't left a lot of great storytelling behind.  That's a legacy, folks.

Descender #2 (Image)

writer: Jeff Lemire

artist: Dustin Nguyen

I think I mentioned this in my review of the first issue, but it bears repeating: Descender reminds me of A.I. Artificial Intelligence.  Less Haley Joel Osment, alas.  But Jeff Lemire has got a very good thing going.

A major element of this particular issue is a series of memories Tim (our boy robot) has concerning his early years, including being activated and then joining his human family.  But that's in the past.  In the present, a repressive government has declared war against technology, including a Blade Runner-esque campaign against robots like Tim.

Against even little boy robots?  Lemire and artist Dustin Nguyen have done an excellent job of portraying Tim's innocence, his yearning to be "a real boy."  Except this Pinocchio comes equipped with a deadly plasma bolt!  And he's not afraid to use it.

The memory element turns out to be tied into how the issue ends, a real cliffhanger moment that's a bit shocking to see come so early in the story (you can maybe more or less guess what that is at this point).  As if I wasn't going to be reading more of this comic anyway, but it'll certainly be interesting to see what happens next.

Descender #1 (Image)

via Jeff Lemire

writer: Jeff Lemire

artist: Dustin Nguyen

Imagine Independence Day crossed with A.I. Artificial Intelligence crossed with Blade Runner.  Great, now you have a general idea of what Descender is all about.

Jeff Lemire needs little introduction at this point, having become a real force in mainstream and indy comics through various works.  His collaborator for this project (Lemire typically does his own art), however, is all but getting a new introduction with Descender, and this is a very good thing.

I previously knew Dustin Nguyen from his Batman: Streets of Gotham work, but he truly began to stand out with Batman: L'il Gotham.  His use of pastel coloring, combined with his deceptively simple style, was the other big draw of the wonderful character work featured in L'il Gotham.  This is exactly the Nguyen that shows up in Descender.

When I say art is becoming crucial again in comics, you must understand that this is a completely different statement than it would have been in the '90s, during the height of the Image revolution.  There was a decided lack of subtlety, and a curious lack of real art, at that time.  Thanks to Fiona Staples, Tula Lotay, J.H. Williams III and others, art is becoming a big draw again today, art that enhances and complements the focus on writing that became the answer to the '90s boom.  Lemire certainly has the credentials and the chops to back up that half.  It's great to see Nguyen get his shot at a true showcase, because I think that may be the best way to sell Descender.

via Jeff Lemire

And he absolutely nails his big opportunity.  He's already been a favorite of mine.  With this project, I think a lot of other people are going to become fans of Dustin Nguyen.