Ranking the first two weeks of Future State, plus Crossover and more!

Fortified with pandemic money, I decided to read at least the first month of Future State, the DC thing that is not 5G but was originally intended to be. I love these DC event blocks whatever their origins, from Tangent Comics to Convergence. Granted, 5G was conceived as a kind of new Silver Age update, a line wide reset, even more radical than the New 52, a new generation of superheroes, including the big three. DC fired Dan DiDio to stop it from actually happening, but it’s...pretty much going to happen anyway. A lot of people were fired to help set up a new generation of creators, many of whom are unofficially beginning their runs here. I feel bad for people losing their jobs in the pandemic, but I also like bold new ideas executed well, and this is what Future State is already proving. From these first two weeks, I see a ton of good.

I’m ordering all this from Midtown. It took ages to get the first box, and then the second of course arrived a few days later, so while everyone else has just digested the third week, here I’m working with just the first two. Well anyway, here’s a ranking, as depicted in the image:

1. Swamp Thing #1 - Ram V, every time I’ve had a look at his work (mostly in the pages of Justice League Dark), has wowed me as working beyond the level of his peers. This might be the project that makes him, or should make him, hard to ignore. This is as good as Swamp Thing has ever been, a return to the famous existential state of Alan Moore. Mike Perkins, another longtime standout, is on art. 

2. Wonder Woman #1 - Joëlle Jones is another creator finally getting her full due spotlight, as writer and artist of this bold new Brazilian Wonder Woman, steeped in mythology, lively, looking and reading brilliantly. 

3. The Next Batman #1 - I have a feeling Future State is happening at all because this past summer’s BLM protests finally made DC publish John Ridley’s Other History of the DC Universe (the second issue of which publishes next week, and which I will write about... a week later?), and this as well. He’s even getting a followup miniseries with the concept. And it will be worth it. This is a Batman who is a fresh look at the familiar concept, a Wayne Enterprises scion who’s been away and is now entering the impossible task of cleaning up Gotham. The big benefit is that it’s a man with an actual family, Tim Fox, whose brother Luke once filled the costume of Batwing. 

4. Dark Detective #1 - Bruce Wayne is dead, Batman is dead. Long live Bruce Wayne, long live Batman. The art is from Dan Mora, Grant Morrison’s brilliant collaborator in Klaus. But the highlight of this book is the Grifter backup feature. It’s the first time I have ever read a competent Grifter comic, so that’s a very welcome development.

5. Superman of Metropolis #1 - The Jon Kent lead is fine, but like the above comic a backup is the real highlight, the Shilo Norman Mister Miracle feature, with standout art from Valentine de Landro.

6. Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #1 - Marguerites Bennett and Sauvage are once again a potent combination here, writing a grownup Supergirl still making peace, or perhaps finally having done so, with arriving so much later than Superman (and now having his son to contend with, too).

7. Justice League #1 - The lead features the next generation League, which is great in and of itself, until it gets even better with the return of the Hyperclan (!!!), plus a Ram V JLDark backup in which, among other things, Detective Chimp has become the other half of Etrigan.

8. Harley Quinn #1 - The big highlight here is the art from Simone DiMeo, which subverts all the usual isn’t-she-a-rebel-but-also-sooo-sexy stylings of Harley Quinn by...making pretty much everything else the focal point. It might be difficult for some to appreciate what the panels actually do, but for me it’s hugely refreshing. 

9. The Flash #1 - The whole Flash family is here, and the story is a riff on Wally Is Bad!!! that’s been a thing since Heroes in Crisis, which is only going to further infuriate those fans, but the story quickly gives another explanation for what’s happening here, and thus a clever setup for the classic Flash battles with the science-based weaponry of his Rogues. For me it’s really just great seeing that family back together, including Max Mercury.

10. Green Lantern #1 - The lead story from hardcore Hal Jordan hater Geoffrey Thorne is yet another tale of the Corps in crisis (it’s time to put a moratorium on that, even more than Superman Reveals His Secret Identity!!! or Daredevil’s Secret Identity Is Revealed!!!), but happily it features G’Nort (obligatory reminder that it’s actually pronounced “Nort”). But the Guy Gardner backup is the real draw, in which he actually finds himself in the position of solving (a) world(’s) peace, with a bar. Until Lobo shows up.

11. Robin Eternal #1 - The big draw for me in this one (besides a neat subplot with the deaf lady who possibly comes from the pages of We Are Robin) is the art from Eddy Barrows. I cannot fathom how he hasn’t attained superstar status. 

12. Superman/Wonder Woman #1 - There’s no reason to dislike it except I was seriously wowed by the new Wonder Woman’s solo book so it kind of pales in comparison.

13. Teen Titans #1 - I look forward to reading the second issue so I can hopefully better appreciate the intrigue surrounding Red X (a character making his canon debut after debuting in the manic cartoon). This is a concept that will be showing up in the post-Future State comics slate, by the way. 

I don’t know if I will be continuing the ranking concept with the next batch (much less shuffling all of them together, much less revising at the end of next month), but that was fun. I like to thwart expectations for these sorts of things, besides, the assumption always being that if you like the stuff at the top you probably don’t the stuff at the bottom. I liked all of this, generally. Some of it, particularly at the top, was truly great material. I’d hate for fans to miss out on it because they fear change or dismiss this tangent matter.

I had a look at a preview of the new Eternals comic from Marvel. I know there’s a movie coming at...some point. I have no idea why, except maybe because Marvel knew DC was working on a New Gods movie, and the Eternals are the Marvel version of the New Gods, also created by Jack Kirby, with not even a tenth the legacy. The new comic seems equally pointless.

I read the second and third (I had previously read the first) issues of Donny Cates’s Crossover. It’s a clever concept. It might wear thin, depending how long it goes. Image tends to dilute its best stuff this way. It’s weird, because Mark Millar ruins all his stuff by making it so short, but Image otherwise lets everything else drag on and on. Everyone is currently waiting to see if there’s going to be more Saga (which would have hugely benefited from not just throwing every weird idea at the, ah, saga), while Kirkman finally admitted he really didn’t actually have anything else to say about Walking Dead. 

Snyder ended Death Metal. It’s a thing that happened because it could, weird stuff being weird for the sake of being weird, which is what Snyder does. 

I read the second issue of Kaare Andrews’ AWA comic E-ratic, which doesn’t look anything like his Spider-Man Reign, alas. But is still a pretty good read. Just saddled with a terrible title.

Generations Shattered turned out to be classic DC storytelling straight outta the ‘90s. Which was the whole point. Is there more? Probably?

Green Hornet #5 from Dynamite featured one of several Lee Weeks covers from these two weeks, which admittedly was one of two reasons I bought it. The other being that it was written by Scott Lobdell, recently finishing up a decade at DC. The story, or at least the art, evokes the classic Batman animated series, which I assume was quite intentional, Green Hornet as a TV property spinning out of another Batman show.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 from Boom! and Al Ewing was interesting enough to justify having already ordered the fifth issue. This was a reprint. I ordered another reprint, from Chip Zdarsky’s Daredevil, in a box arriving...soonish, but passed on the new issue from this coming week. But the cat’s out of the bag: Elektra is now moonlighting as Daredevil.

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...