I haven't been to an actual comic book store in about half a year, so I decided it was time to visit one, given the opportunity, and found some good stuff:
Batman #84 (DC)
And now there's one issue to go. Ironically or not, but the longer Tom King's run went, the less fans really cared. The obvious tipping point was when the wedding didn't actually happen. Fans felt cheated. They wanted something truly big to happen, and King seemed to promise exactly that. Instead the reaction has solidified on...pretty much how all of King's DC material has been received, as so much awkward navel-gazing. The irony here is that when he did it for Marvel (The Vision), everyone lauded him as a new genius, perhaps because Marvel so seldom publishes reflective material, let alone seems to realize that it has, and that it's worth celebrating.
I still can't think of any comic book writer I've so consistently admired, who has so often grasped the potential of DC's landscape. His accomplishments go far beyond anyone else's for the fact of delivering on nearly everything he's done, dating back to Omega Men, when he was entrusted with his first spotlight work. That goes back to 2015. Half a decade of excellence, and one long stellar run on a major title.
This particular issue harkens back to his first standout mainstream accomplishment, Grayson: Futures End, where I first came to discover King's remarkable talents. Grayson was a series he typically wrote in conjunction with Tim Seeley, but for the Futures End one-shot, he wrote solo, and even beyond the clever coding gimmick, it was brilliant character-based storytelling.
So in the issue, he basically extrapolates the Flashpoint Batman's complete story, which is all the more remarkable because that story was already brilliantly told in Flashpoint itself and the acknowledged best mini-series that spun out of it. And in doing so, explains his whole purpose for the Batman run he's been doing all along. This is a master class, not only in itself but in the fruitful extension of someone else's ideas. When all is said and done, it's something that will need to be included not only in the legacy of Batman, but Flashpoint, and superhero comics in general.
Collapser #5 (DC/Young Animal)
I like to try and discover interesting new material, too, when I visit a comics shop. Granted, this was far easier when I used to spend far more money on comics (money that I, ah, didn't technically...have?), but now I have to use the old "it looks interesting" approach, or even risk taking recommendations (these don't always pan out, naturally, but then, it's how I discovered Young Avengers). And Collapser #5 had an interesting cover, and it was a Young Animal comic. I love the Young Animal imprint, even if fans in general seem strangely apathetic about it. Such is life. The results this time were adequate, if not sensational. I didn't regret buying and/or reading it. Yay!
Copra #3 (Image)
Ah! So Copra is being published by Image now! The last time I can think of that Image picked up a popular self-published comic was Bone. Probably not the only example, but the only one I really care about. And Copra is another great acquisition! It may look crude, compared to the slick packages of virtually every other Image comic (but that goes with the name, right?), but Copra remains a good read.
Doctor Mirage #4 (Valiant)
I've sort of let Valiant's comics slip from my radar in recent years, but I like to keep tabs. Apparently they finally continued Doctor Mirage's adventures! Sadly, not under the title The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage, much less written by Jen Van Meter, but it's still nice to see!
Far Sector #1 (DC/Young Animal)
Ah! It's almost like reading King's Omega Men all over again! Insofar as it's another Green Lantern tale, without "Green Lantern" in the title, that turns out to be a brilliant new interpretation of what a Green Lantern comic can be! Far Sector features yet another new human Green Lantern, but N.K. Jemisin doesn't linger (at least in this debut issue) on that aspect so much as the murder mystery she's tossed into, in about as grand a miasma as King's Omega Men featured. Some readers might complain that Jemisin tries to be too hip, but I think it works, and it makes me want to not only keep tabs on Far Sector, but read some of Jemisin's books. It doesn't always work, but finding talent outside the usual comic book circles has the potential to find a Jemisin or a Tom King. And apparently awesome new Green Lantern comics. Love it!
Flash Forward #1 (DC)
After all the complaints about Heroes in Crisis, I loved when DC announced Flash Forward, a new Wally West tale. Several issues have been released at this point, but I figured I should see how it began. And I love it. Scott Lobdell, who has quietly become one of DC's one reliable character writers, captures a Wally who's even more traumatized than readers by his actions, but thrust all the same into a wild new adventure. Juxtaposing Wally's arc with another wild ride into the multiverse is itself another interesting choice, but I think Lobdell can avoid duplicating what ultimately happened to Booster Gold when he attempted a career revision in similar fashion (and in the process helped form the foundation of the TV series Legends of Tomorrow, which he inexplicably has never factored into).
Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (DC)
I've never been a devoted Legion fan, but I've read enough Legion comics to have built up an interest, and this is Brian Michael Bendis, still firing on all cylinders in his new DC digs, so of course I dig it.
Second Coming #5 (Ahoy)
Wow. So I haven't read anything but this issue, but I'm glad this comic exists. It's exactly what Mark Russell should be writing. The guy made his name writing stuff like this, so I'm glad he returned to the well. This particular issue is God and Satan having an awkward attempt at reconciliation, which is itself brilliant, plus the Second Coming Superman analog struggling at another kind of reconciliation, whether or not he'll ever have a child, which '90s Superman (in the comics and Lois & Clark on TV wondered about, too) was also concerned about, although since then we've gotten two versions of Superman's son. I'm in love with Russell again. I continue to hope that, even as his profile has risen greatly in recent years, it can go higher still.
X-Men #1 (Marvel)
Jonathan Hickman, riding high from great acclaim for his X-Men universe relaunch, begins to settle in, and I still enjoy the results.
Young Justice #11 (DC/Wonder Comics)
Here's Bendis again, integrating Naomi into the greater landscape. I love that he's helped Tim Drake finally follow in Dick Grayson (and Jason Todd's! and even Stephanie Brown's!) footsteps and assume an identity that doesn't have "Robin" in it. I know some fans complain that it's...Drake, which is...already his last name. But realistically, his secret identity is still firmly intact. And at the moment, his adventures are so wild, he's far removed from the common element, so it hardly matters. But I want it to stick. I want a Drake comic. (And a comic for everyone in this book! I wasn't totally committed to the Peter David version of the team. But I'm glad it's made a comeback.) And I'm glad Naomi is getting a chance to expand her emerging legacy. I hope she sticks around for years.
Showing posts with label Jonathan Hickman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Hickman. Show all posts
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Back Issue Bin 124 "The Weather Man and other comics"
True Believers - Jessica Jones: Alias #1 (Marvel)
The True Believer comics are dollar reprints, which have been popular in recent years from a number of publishers to help catch fans up. This particular one was intended to celebrate both Marvel Knights, twenty years this year as the last time Marvel fans really celebrated a whole creative moment (the Ultimate line coincided with it) and the Netflix shows, of which Jessica Jones is one of them. Alias was the original title, before Jennifer Garner and J.J. Abrams made it more famous. But when you think about it, it's appropriate for this particular character to be advertised under a proper name, a post-Starman expansion of the post-Watchmen deconstruction movement, where superheroes could walk away from the life. Anyway, this is also one of Brian Michael Bendis's most famous creations, and the pattern he's been following in Jinxworld ever since.
Bane: Conquest#10 (DC)
TV shows get revived all the time these days; it sometimes happens in comics, too. Dan Jurgens was doing it before it was cool, revisiting Doomsday in a series of projects. Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan have done it with Bane a few times, too, most recently in this mini-series, whose only real questionable decision was the mask revision, where we see Bane's nose. Yeah, no. Anyway, otherwise this is perfectly identifiable as continuing the original Bane narrative, perhaps last seen in Vengeance of Bane II. I never really liked the Bane revisions, which is another reason to admire Tom King's comics, as they're the first time Bane has really been Bane since the old days.
Image Firsts: Curse Words #1 (Image)
Here's another company with dollar comic reprints! And here's me finally reading Curse Words! And I really feel bad about it now, more than ever. I've been a big fan of Charles Soule for years now. Unfortunately "big fan" for me doesn't mean the same thing it used to. If I were spending money on comics like I have before (rashly, unwisely, in terms of general finances), I'd've been reading everything Charles Soule I could get my hands on. I'd've read the complete Letter 44, his complete Daredevil, and this. But I haven't, and hadn't even had a proper look until now. But it's great! This is the story of a fantasy world a wizard escapes from, after realizing his mission to destroy Earth was a bad one and subsequently settling in as a wizard-for-hire. The whole issue reads wonderfully. Soule positively crackles with creative energy, and this whole concept encapsulates that really well. So I will probably have to read more at some point.
DC Universe: Last Will and Testament (DC)
This was a one-shot from Brad Meltzer, who famously made a big bang comics debut with Identity Crisis, and then a sting in Justice League of America. This is a wonderful spotlight for Geo-Force, a character who otherwise never really stands out. But this is really, really a story that should've corrected that, and a terrific way of demonstrating a compelling story can be found for any character.
True Believers: Infinity Incoming! (Marvel)
A repackaging of Jonathan Hickman's first issue of Avengers, it's clear how epic Hickman wants to feel, but I'm not sure as a storyteller he ever quite hits the notes he reaches for, which is why I've never gotten into him.
Marvels #2 (Marvel)
I've never read the complete Marvels. In fact, this is now the most I've ever read! It always seemed like a Marvel-exclusive tale, a celebration, and I spent a lot of time not feeling like that kind of reader. But it was so famous, I've read some of this already. But not all of it. The issue is actually geared toward the X-Men and the "mutant problem." I'm not sure anyone's ever really adequately explained why superpowers in Marvel are considered bad (mutant or otherwise), so I guess that's just a story I'll have to keep looking for.
Mera: Queen of Atlantis #1 (DC)
I love that Mera finally has her own comic! Even if it's just a mini-series. That's one of the biggest things Geoff Johns has accomplished over the years, elevating Mera to known status, and I think she's got farther to go. Curiously this debut issue sort of spends most of its time...focusing on Aquaman-specific elements. So you can see how far it can still go...
Orion #23 (DC)
The Walt Simonson series; Simonson is one of the few creators who can get away with revisiting the New Gods without anyone thinking he's revising them. This particular issue doesn't really have anything to do with the New Gods, which is actually a lot like how Jack Kirby himself first used them.
Thanos #2 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire! Another modern creator I'd love to read more extensively, and another comic I'm reading for the first time. The only thing I don't get (otherwise it's a lot like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but without the humor) is why Thanos would fear death. Maybe I'm not thinking clearly about this because I'm not exhaustively versed in it, but isn't Thanos obsessed with Death? If he can be united with her in death, wouldn't that help him fulfill his fondest desire? But maybe this is something Lemire explores elsewhere in his tale.
The Twelve #12 (Marvel)
I read this series as it was originally published, even enduring the long delay halfway through with patience, but it was fun to revisit. I honestly think that what's happening with Marvel now is that it tried extremely hard to reinvent itself over the past twenty years as a more dynamic House of Ideas, but now that it's gone back to its more traditional mode, fans realize that there was something missing. There's no reason why The Twelve shouldn't be considered an evergreen title.
The Weatherman #1-5 (Image)
Being a Star Trek fan, (I want to say of course here, but it hasn't been that simple with Star Trek fans for at least twenty years), I watched the first season of Discovery, which featured a lot of twists, one of which was that one of the characters was a Klingon all along and didn't even know it. I don't know if Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox were at all inspired by that, but it was impossible not to think about while reading, and remains my favorite way to think about these issues. Because otherwise they're a lot like...most Image comics, in that they seem to exist merely to indulge shock value, with [hang narrative description here] merely an excuse to do so. Few of them seem at all interested in anything more than a shallow understanding of their characters, and it's really no different here. It's not that most comics have more depth, but that as a rule, Image seems to be, well, image-deep. Back at its founding, it was famously led by artists, with writing that was never really a priority, until it was pointed out and they started bringing in better writers. But then they seemed to forget, all in the interests of championing independent comics that still had a reasonable chance of, y'know, selling. So they took shortcuts. All the time. And so the image stays the...same.
The True Believer comics are dollar reprints, which have been popular in recent years from a number of publishers to help catch fans up. This particular one was intended to celebrate both Marvel Knights, twenty years this year as the last time Marvel fans really celebrated a whole creative moment (the Ultimate line coincided with it) and the Netflix shows, of which Jessica Jones is one of them. Alias was the original title, before Jennifer Garner and J.J. Abrams made it more famous. But when you think about it, it's appropriate for this particular character to be advertised under a proper name, a post-Starman expansion of the post-Watchmen deconstruction movement, where superheroes could walk away from the life. Anyway, this is also one of Brian Michael Bendis's most famous creations, and the pattern he's been following in Jinxworld ever since.
Bane: Conquest#10 (DC)
TV shows get revived all the time these days; it sometimes happens in comics, too. Dan Jurgens was doing it before it was cool, revisiting Doomsday in a series of projects. Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan have done it with Bane a few times, too, most recently in this mini-series, whose only real questionable decision was the mask revision, where we see Bane's nose. Yeah, no. Anyway, otherwise this is perfectly identifiable as continuing the original Bane narrative, perhaps last seen in Vengeance of Bane II. I never really liked the Bane revisions, which is another reason to admire Tom King's comics, as they're the first time Bane has really been Bane since the old days.
Image Firsts: Curse Words #1 (Image)
Here's another company with dollar comic reprints! And here's me finally reading Curse Words! And I really feel bad about it now, more than ever. I've been a big fan of Charles Soule for years now. Unfortunately "big fan" for me doesn't mean the same thing it used to. If I were spending money on comics like I have before (rashly, unwisely, in terms of general finances), I'd've been reading everything Charles Soule I could get my hands on. I'd've read the complete Letter 44, his complete Daredevil, and this. But I haven't, and hadn't even had a proper look until now. But it's great! This is the story of a fantasy world a wizard escapes from, after realizing his mission to destroy Earth was a bad one and subsequently settling in as a wizard-for-hire. The whole issue reads wonderfully. Soule positively crackles with creative energy, and this whole concept encapsulates that really well. So I will probably have to read more at some point.
DC Universe: Last Will and Testament (DC)
This was a one-shot from Brad Meltzer, who famously made a big bang comics debut with Identity Crisis, and then a sting in Justice League of America. This is a wonderful spotlight for Geo-Force, a character who otherwise never really stands out. But this is really, really a story that should've corrected that, and a terrific way of demonstrating a compelling story can be found for any character.
True Believers: Infinity Incoming! (Marvel)
A repackaging of Jonathan Hickman's first issue of Avengers, it's clear how epic Hickman wants to feel, but I'm not sure as a storyteller he ever quite hits the notes he reaches for, which is why I've never gotten into him.
Marvels #2 (Marvel)
I've never read the complete Marvels. In fact, this is now the most I've ever read! It always seemed like a Marvel-exclusive tale, a celebration, and I spent a lot of time not feeling like that kind of reader. But it was so famous, I've read some of this already. But not all of it. The issue is actually geared toward the X-Men and the "mutant problem." I'm not sure anyone's ever really adequately explained why superpowers in Marvel are considered bad (mutant or otherwise), so I guess that's just a story I'll have to keep looking for.
Mera: Queen of Atlantis #1 (DC)
I love that Mera finally has her own comic! Even if it's just a mini-series. That's one of the biggest things Geoff Johns has accomplished over the years, elevating Mera to known status, and I think she's got farther to go. Curiously this debut issue sort of spends most of its time...focusing on Aquaman-specific elements. So you can see how far it can still go...
Orion #23 (DC)
The Walt Simonson series; Simonson is one of the few creators who can get away with revisiting the New Gods without anyone thinking he's revising them. This particular issue doesn't really have anything to do with the New Gods, which is actually a lot like how Jack Kirby himself first used them.
Thanos #2 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire! Another modern creator I'd love to read more extensively, and another comic I'm reading for the first time. The only thing I don't get (otherwise it's a lot like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but without the humor) is why Thanos would fear death. Maybe I'm not thinking clearly about this because I'm not exhaustively versed in it, but isn't Thanos obsessed with Death? If he can be united with her in death, wouldn't that help him fulfill his fondest desire? But maybe this is something Lemire explores elsewhere in his tale.
The Twelve #12 (Marvel)
I read this series as it was originally published, even enduring the long delay halfway through with patience, but it was fun to revisit. I honestly think that what's happening with Marvel now is that it tried extremely hard to reinvent itself over the past twenty years as a more dynamic House of Ideas, but now that it's gone back to its more traditional mode, fans realize that there was something missing. There's no reason why The Twelve shouldn't be considered an evergreen title.
Being a Star Trek fan, (I want to say of course here, but it hasn't been that simple with Star Trek fans for at least twenty years), I watched the first season of Discovery, which featured a lot of twists, one of which was that one of the characters was a Klingon all along and didn't even know it. I don't know if Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox were at all inspired by that, but it was impossible not to think about while reading, and remains my favorite way to think about these issues. Because otherwise they're a lot like...most Image comics, in that they seem to exist merely to indulge shock value, with [hang narrative description here] merely an excuse to do so. Few of them seem at all interested in anything more than a shallow understanding of their characters, and it's really no different here. It's not that most comics have more depth, but that as a rule, Image seems to be, well, image-deep. Back at its founding, it was famously led by artists, with writing that was never really a priority, until it was pointed out and they started bringing in better writers. But then they seemed to forget, all in the interests of championing independent comics that still had a reasonable chance of, y'know, selling. So they took shortcuts. All the time. And so the image stays the...same.
Friday, September 2, 2016
Quarter Bin 88 "Marvel's All New, All Different"
Back issues of the recent past this edition: All-New All-Different Avengers #1, the Uncanny Inhumans #2, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1, Secret Wars #5, Secret Wars Too, Spider-Woman #1, Star Wars: Darth Vader #11, and Web-Warriors #2.
All-New All-Different Avengers #1 (Marvel)
From January 2016.
The Alex Ross cover doesn't exactly scream the same "youth" as the lineup and interior of this revamped team, featuring characters from the Ms. Marvel generation. Written by Mark Waid and drawn by Adam Kubert (the brother who worked on Action Comics with Geoff Johns, not the one who worked on Batman with Grant Morrison), this is exactly an updated version of the kind of stuff Marvel has been doing since the '60s, and hey, it seems to be working quite well for them, right?
The Uncanny Inhumans #2 (Marvel)
From January 2016.
With the heavy role the Inhumans are playing lately, not just in Civil War II but generally speaking (Marvel is kind of desperate for them to replace the X-Men, whose movies are not currently controlled by Dr. Disney), it was kind of crucial for the comics to be good. I knew Charles Soule had it in him, and Steve McNiven has been a heavy-hitter (collaborations with Mark Millar on the first Civil War and the original "Old Man Logan," for instance) for years, so creatively, I have nothing to complain about. The comic is good, too, with Black Bolt falling out with his lady Medusa, and their son Ahura falling under the influence of Kang, an arc that accelerates giddily throughout this issue. I have plenty of evidence that Soule knows how to write great comics (his Secret Wars version of Civil War, for instance, in case you thought I'd referenced that title for the last time), so it's good to see that he started out well here, too.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 (Marvel)
From March 2016.
This is stuff adapted from the TV series, which I've never particularly made a habit of watching (I'm a Flash guy, with some real effort toward DC's Legends of Tomorrow tossed in), but I knew Agent Coulson had a flying car he calls Lola. Apparently he named it in honor of his ex-wife.
Secret Wars #5 (Marvel)
From October 2015.
As A DC guy, I tend to be amused at the way fans and creators alike treat Dr. Doom like a god. I just never understood it. In this entry of Jonathan Hickman's ultimate Fantastic Four (sendoff) saga, Doom literally has become a god, and the entire issue is just kind of Doom complaining about it with a lackey, because he recently offed Dr. Strange and no longer feels challenged. You know what? I'm not even going to talk about this issue. Let's just move on, because Hickman's got better material in:
Secret Wars, Too (Marvel)
From January 2016.
This is literally Hickman and Marvel joking around about the whole Secret Wars concept. Marvel has gotten to the point where it either publishes straight-out humor titles, titles obviously inspired by successful movies, or the handful of serious stuff it allows itself to do, so it's not at all surprising that something like Hickman literally laughing about his apparent inability to finish his story happens in something Marvel itself published. Marvel has become the House Wizard Created. All throughout the '90s, Wizard was a massive Marvel fan service, and introduced the cartoony approach to fandom that has since gone mainstream. Hickman's piece is brilliant, in which he imagines a conversation with Dr. Doom about what the conclusion should be. Then there's some middling stuff that's just kind of there, and then indy creators Rob Guillory (Chew) and Eric Powell (The Goon) provide some of their trademark wit. I actually have to give Marvel props for releasing this. In another era, this would've been a jump-the-shark moment, but this one's all about that kind of irreverence.
Spider-Woman #1 (Marvel)
From January 2016.
This one's famously the cover advance solicits spoiled as feature the pregnant Jessica Drew. Dennis Hopeless somewhat hopefully assumes readers would be familiar with Spider-Woman's somewhat odd supporting cast (the guy who's dressed up as a porcupine), so he spends the entire issue presenting the awkward situation of superhero being unable to superhero while pregnant. It's bold in an era where it's kind of anathema to be pregnant (or something) to have a pregnant superhero, but one wonders if this latest calculated move to corner every market didn't miscalculate.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #11 (Marvel)
From December 2015.
Kieron Gillen normally gets pretty high marks from fans, but he apparently is somewhat uninterested in featuring Darth Vader as the lead of his own comic...
Web-Warriors #2 (Marvel)
From February 2016.
This series was recently cancelled, and Mike Costa announced to be moving on with a new Venom series, which I think will be right up his alley. I've been a vocal of supporter of Costa for years, and long for the day he'll be a major player at the Big Two (I can't believe he's gotten less than the Greg Rucka treatment). It may be that he simply finds it hard to use his Cobra style outside of his IDW work. Not in this issue, though. This one reads like a straight-up Web-Warriors edition of Cobra, detailing Electro's romp through the Spider-Verse, with Spider-Gwen (this is what Marvel thinks of as witty) filling in for the good guy Costa frequently traps in his webs (phrasing it that way totally helps make sense of Marvel thinking of him as a Spider-Man guy). Maybe I'm just as guilty as anyone else in not giving Costa's non-Cobra work a fair shot, but it's always nice to come across work that rings so true to what I know best, because Costa's best is among the all-time best.
All-New All-Different Avengers #1 (Marvel)
From January 2016.
The Alex Ross cover doesn't exactly scream the same "youth" as the lineup and interior of this revamped team, featuring characters from the Ms. Marvel generation. Written by Mark Waid and drawn by Adam Kubert (the brother who worked on Action Comics with Geoff Johns, not the one who worked on Batman with Grant Morrison), this is exactly an updated version of the kind of stuff Marvel has been doing since the '60s, and hey, it seems to be working quite well for them, right?
The Uncanny Inhumans #2 (Marvel)
From January 2016.
With the heavy role the Inhumans are playing lately, not just in Civil War II but generally speaking (Marvel is kind of desperate for them to replace the X-Men, whose movies are not currently controlled by Dr. Disney), it was kind of crucial for the comics to be good. I knew Charles Soule had it in him, and Steve McNiven has been a heavy-hitter (collaborations with Mark Millar on the first Civil War and the original "Old Man Logan," for instance) for years, so creatively, I have nothing to complain about. The comic is good, too, with Black Bolt falling out with his lady Medusa, and their son Ahura falling under the influence of Kang, an arc that accelerates giddily throughout this issue. I have plenty of evidence that Soule knows how to write great comics (his Secret Wars version of Civil War, for instance, in case you thought I'd referenced that title for the last time), so it's good to see that he started out well here, too.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 (Marvel)
From March 2016.
This is stuff adapted from the TV series, which I've never particularly made a habit of watching (I'm a Flash guy, with some real effort toward DC's Legends of Tomorrow tossed in), but I knew Agent Coulson had a flying car he calls Lola. Apparently he named it in honor of his ex-wife.
Secret Wars #5 (Marvel)
From October 2015.
As A DC guy, I tend to be amused at the way fans and creators alike treat Dr. Doom like a god. I just never understood it. In this entry of Jonathan Hickman's ultimate Fantastic Four (sendoff) saga, Doom literally has become a god, and the entire issue is just kind of Doom complaining about it with a lackey, because he recently offed Dr. Strange and no longer feels challenged. You know what? I'm not even going to talk about this issue. Let's just move on, because Hickman's got better material in:
Secret Wars, Too (Marvel)
From January 2016.
This is literally Hickman and Marvel joking around about the whole Secret Wars concept. Marvel has gotten to the point where it either publishes straight-out humor titles, titles obviously inspired by successful movies, or the handful of serious stuff it allows itself to do, so it's not at all surprising that something like Hickman literally laughing about his apparent inability to finish his story happens in something Marvel itself published. Marvel has become the House Wizard Created. All throughout the '90s, Wizard was a massive Marvel fan service, and introduced the cartoony approach to fandom that has since gone mainstream. Hickman's piece is brilliant, in which he imagines a conversation with Dr. Doom about what the conclusion should be. Then there's some middling stuff that's just kind of there, and then indy creators Rob Guillory (Chew) and Eric Powell (The Goon) provide some of their trademark wit. I actually have to give Marvel props for releasing this. In another era, this would've been a jump-the-shark moment, but this one's all about that kind of irreverence.
Spider-Woman #1 (Marvel)
From January 2016.
This one's famously the cover advance solicits spoiled as feature the pregnant Jessica Drew. Dennis Hopeless somewhat hopefully assumes readers would be familiar with Spider-Woman's somewhat odd supporting cast (the guy who's dressed up as a porcupine), so he spends the entire issue presenting the awkward situation of superhero being unable to superhero while pregnant. It's bold in an era where it's kind of anathema to be pregnant (or something) to have a pregnant superhero, but one wonders if this latest calculated move to corner every market didn't miscalculate.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #11 (Marvel)
From December 2015.
Kieron Gillen normally gets pretty high marks from fans, but he apparently is somewhat uninterested in featuring Darth Vader as the lead of his own comic...
Web-Warriors #2 (Marvel)
From February 2016.
This series was recently cancelled, and Mike Costa announced to be moving on with a new Venom series, which I think will be right up his alley. I've been a vocal of supporter of Costa for years, and long for the day he'll be a major player at the Big Two (I can't believe he's gotten less than the Greg Rucka treatment). It may be that he simply finds it hard to use his Cobra style outside of his IDW work. Not in this issue, though. This one reads like a straight-up Web-Warriors edition of Cobra, detailing Electro's romp through the Spider-Verse, with Spider-Gwen (this is what Marvel thinks of as witty) filling in for the good guy Costa frequently traps in his webs (phrasing it that way totally helps make sense of Marvel thinking of him as a Spider-Man guy). Maybe I'm just as guilty as anyone else in not giving Costa's non-Cobra work a fair shot, but it's always nice to come across work that rings so true to what I know best, because Costa's best is among the all-time best.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Reading Comics 190 "DC Rebirth Week 3, 4001 AD, DKR: The Last Crusade, Dept. H, and catching up with Secret Wars"
4001 AD #1 (Valiant)
Valiant's latest event series takes a look at the future courtesy of the ever-resourceful Matt Kindt, imagining the tyranny of New Japan and the rise of a new Rai to challenge it. Once again Valiant has proven that its unique superhero vision, the first comprehensive ongoing revision of the 21st century, has incredible legs, where just about anything's possible, and it nearly always seems completely plausible, not to mention remarkably cohesive. It's not like others haven't tried, but it helps to have talent like Kindt and Jeff Lemire leading the charge.
Batman #1 (DC)
Tom King's first regular issue of the series once again demonstrates his remarkably analytical mind, as Batman and Duke Thomas pull back the curtain on what it takes to pull off the impossible. Of course, it's also Batman doing so at the expense of his own life, in yet another layer of King showing that Batman isn't like other superheroes. When an out-of-control plane threatens to crash in Gotham City, he can't just fly in and guide it safely down. No, for someone like Batman, it takes considerably more effort. If this were the movies, you might expect something like this from the show-stopping exploits in the Mission: Impossible series. Few writers would be bold enough to expose Batman's limits in this way. King is merely setting himself up for that moment you though you'd never see: some other hero calling Gotham his home, someone who can fly, who represents everything Batman can never be. This ain't no Superman. Is King preparing to White Martian us? Time will tell...
The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade (DC)
This prequel to the original Dark Knight Returns depicts the circumstances in which Batman originally retires. It's in effect his last statement on Robin, the Boy Wonder, too. In the Dark Knight universe, Frank Miller offered up his judgment quite effectively: Dick Grayson goes insane. Yet there was also, before "A Death in the Family," a dead Robin to account for. The Last Crusade is a rephrasing of "A Death in the Family," actually, the Joker once again being responsible for the death of Jason Todd, under the same circumstances, the second Robin increasingly demonstrating that he isn't mentally prepared for Batman's crusade. And yet, unlike "A Death in the Family" and its follow-up, "A Lonely Place of Dying," Miller (along with co-writer Brian Azzarello, around so Miller can't go wildly out of control again) has determined that the problem isn't Jason's attitude, but Batman's notion of having a kid sidekick in the first place.
This was what he was getting around to explaining in All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, I think, and as I'd hoped, The Last Crusade is the finishing statement we'll probably never get from the earlier project. All Star Batman became a joke among readers for its brutish portrayal of the Dark Knight, a true maniac who was difficult to root for, in a story featuring Dick Grayson's initiation into crime-fighting. Miller never conceded that it was a good thing. Comics fans never really picked up on that, and they probably still won't with The Last Crusade, even though by this point his conclusions are unmistakable. The Batman of this story is aging, and his body is fast betraying him. He reveals that he hoped Robin would prove to be his successor. On the second try, he's proven brutally wrong. You can only duplicate so much of what created Batman.
It's an incredibly bold statement. I think the whole concept of the Dark Knight stories is creating a reality where Batman exists in a finite world, where he can't escape consequences. This can never exist in the ongoing comics, because fans will always clamor to see old favorites return, and creators will always be there to help them in that goal. In Miller's reckoning, Batman is human, and as such is completely fallible, and bad things happen as a result of his actions, whether to himself, to those around him, or in the world around him, not because of anything he does, but because that's just a fact of life.
As a summation, The Last Crusade may be the most crucial element of the most important Batman story ever told.
Dept. H #2 (Dark Horse)
Matt Kindt again, in his creative follow-up to Mind MGMT, his innovative look at the spy world. Dept. H seems to be an unrelated story, but Kindt is once again handling writing and art chores, so the look is the same, and so is the storytelling. In this second issue, someone has died, and someone else, burdened with a perfect memory, realizes that it could only have been murder. Clearly, Kindt continues to have the mind on the mind, and this continues to be a good thing.
Green Arrow #1 (DC)
I tended to skip Green Arrow in the New 52, but figured I'd give the guy another shot in the Rebirth era. Not only is Black Canary back in the picture, but so is Oliver Queen's moral compass. At his best, Green Arrow will always be the Batman whose inner Bruce Wayne dominates his goals more than his crime-fighting. This is one of those rich guy characters whose transformation into a superhero made him socially conscious for the first time in his life. This issue does a good job of bringing that back into focus.
Green Lanterns #1 (DC)
Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz don't play well together. They have conflicting mindsets, and as rookies, they both have plenty to prove. That rounds out to good Green Lantern storytelling, as we learn more of what makes Baz stand out (we now have him deemed the bearer of Emerald Sight), which is an important distinction for all these human Green Lanterns, as the new Red Lantern threat continues to unfold. I'm so glad DC is letting this franchise return to its recent Geoff Johns roots.
Secret Wars #9 (Marvel)
Flashing back to the last Marvel event, and its ending, we find Jonathan Hickman closing out the book on his Fantastic Four adventures, imagining the last conflict between Dr. Doom and Reed Richards. Doom had found himself in possession of ultimate power, and decides Richards is, once and for all, jealous of him, because he could never do as good as Doom. Someone decides to put that to the test, and so the Marvel landscape is reshaped (to its current state), and Richards retires from the superhero game to act as a kind of gatekeeper (thus allowing Marvel to remove the Fantastic Four from its lineup). Hickman was always a big game hunter, and I guess it was appropriate that he wound up telling the biggest Fantastic Four story ever, so we'd see what that finally looked like.
Superman #1 (DC)
Tomasi and Gleason reprise their Batman and Robin act, this time on the grand stage. Once again, a DC icon has a son struggling with his place in the world, and once again, Tomasi and Gleason are ready to knock it out of the park. I couldn't be happier for them. The story starts out pretty heavily focused on Superman, but then we meet his son Jonathan, who is struggling with his new powers. This was something Tomasi and Gleason touched on in Batman and Robin, when Damian briefly gained superpowers in the wake of his resurrection. It's one thing to have an indomitable youth on your hands. It's another when it's Superman's son. All these years, whenever someone wanted to tell a story about the young Superman, it was always the exception, and then more often than not something glossed over until he hit puberty and, in some continuities, became Superboy. This is the first time we'll see it play out in an ongoing capacity. Framed as Superman's son, this is an intriguing opportunity, and again, Tomasi and Gleason are well up to the task. They know when they need to provide dialogue, and when the story speaks for itself. Anyway, I'm hugely, hugely glad this is happening, no matter how long it lasts.
Titans: Rebirth #1 (DC)
The return of Wally West continues, as he reconnects with his oldest friends, the original Teen Titans, in a series of encounters that prove all over again how personal these DC stories are to these characters, and how they can connect on an emotional level with fans, too.
Valiant's latest event series takes a look at the future courtesy of the ever-resourceful Matt Kindt, imagining the tyranny of New Japan and the rise of a new Rai to challenge it. Once again Valiant has proven that its unique superhero vision, the first comprehensive ongoing revision of the 21st century, has incredible legs, where just about anything's possible, and it nearly always seems completely plausible, not to mention remarkably cohesive. It's not like others haven't tried, but it helps to have talent like Kindt and Jeff Lemire leading the charge.
Batman #1 (DC)
Tom King's first regular issue of the series once again demonstrates his remarkably analytical mind, as Batman and Duke Thomas pull back the curtain on what it takes to pull off the impossible. Of course, it's also Batman doing so at the expense of his own life, in yet another layer of King showing that Batman isn't like other superheroes. When an out-of-control plane threatens to crash in Gotham City, he can't just fly in and guide it safely down. No, for someone like Batman, it takes considerably more effort. If this were the movies, you might expect something like this from the show-stopping exploits in the Mission: Impossible series. Few writers would be bold enough to expose Batman's limits in this way. King is merely setting himself up for that moment you though you'd never see: some other hero calling Gotham his home, someone who can fly, who represents everything Batman can never be. This ain't no Superman. Is King preparing to White Martian us? Time will tell...
The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade (DC)
This prequel to the original Dark Knight Returns depicts the circumstances in which Batman originally retires. It's in effect his last statement on Robin, the Boy Wonder, too. In the Dark Knight universe, Frank Miller offered up his judgment quite effectively: Dick Grayson goes insane. Yet there was also, before "A Death in the Family," a dead Robin to account for. The Last Crusade is a rephrasing of "A Death in the Family," actually, the Joker once again being responsible for the death of Jason Todd, under the same circumstances, the second Robin increasingly demonstrating that he isn't mentally prepared for Batman's crusade. And yet, unlike "A Death in the Family" and its follow-up, "A Lonely Place of Dying," Miller (along with co-writer Brian Azzarello, around so Miller can't go wildly out of control again) has determined that the problem isn't Jason's attitude, but Batman's notion of having a kid sidekick in the first place.
This was what he was getting around to explaining in All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, I think, and as I'd hoped, The Last Crusade is the finishing statement we'll probably never get from the earlier project. All Star Batman became a joke among readers for its brutish portrayal of the Dark Knight, a true maniac who was difficult to root for, in a story featuring Dick Grayson's initiation into crime-fighting. Miller never conceded that it was a good thing. Comics fans never really picked up on that, and they probably still won't with The Last Crusade, even though by this point his conclusions are unmistakable. The Batman of this story is aging, and his body is fast betraying him. He reveals that he hoped Robin would prove to be his successor. On the second try, he's proven brutally wrong. You can only duplicate so much of what created Batman.
It's an incredibly bold statement. I think the whole concept of the Dark Knight stories is creating a reality where Batman exists in a finite world, where he can't escape consequences. This can never exist in the ongoing comics, because fans will always clamor to see old favorites return, and creators will always be there to help them in that goal. In Miller's reckoning, Batman is human, and as such is completely fallible, and bad things happen as a result of his actions, whether to himself, to those around him, or in the world around him, not because of anything he does, but because that's just a fact of life.
As a summation, The Last Crusade may be the most crucial element of the most important Batman story ever told.
Dept. H #2 (Dark Horse)
Matt Kindt again, in his creative follow-up to Mind MGMT, his innovative look at the spy world. Dept. H seems to be an unrelated story, but Kindt is once again handling writing and art chores, so the look is the same, and so is the storytelling. In this second issue, someone has died, and someone else, burdened with a perfect memory, realizes that it could only have been murder. Clearly, Kindt continues to have the mind on the mind, and this continues to be a good thing.
Green Arrow #1 (DC)
I tended to skip Green Arrow in the New 52, but figured I'd give the guy another shot in the Rebirth era. Not only is Black Canary back in the picture, but so is Oliver Queen's moral compass. At his best, Green Arrow will always be the Batman whose inner Bruce Wayne dominates his goals more than his crime-fighting. This is one of those rich guy characters whose transformation into a superhero made him socially conscious for the first time in his life. This issue does a good job of bringing that back into focus.
Green Lanterns #1 (DC)
Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz don't play well together. They have conflicting mindsets, and as rookies, they both have plenty to prove. That rounds out to good Green Lantern storytelling, as we learn more of what makes Baz stand out (we now have him deemed the bearer of Emerald Sight), which is an important distinction for all these human Green Lanterns, as the new Red Lantern threat continues to unfold. I'm so glad DC is letting this franchise return to its recent Geoff Johns roots.
Secret Wars #9 (Marvel)
Flashing back to the last Marvel event, and its ending, we find Jonathan Hickman closing out the book on his Fantastic Four adventures, imagining the last conflict between Dr. Doom and Reed Richards. Doom had found himself in possession of ultimate power, and decides Richards is, once and for all, jealous of him, because he could never do as good as Doom. Someone decides to put that to the test, and so the Marvel landscape is reshaped (to its current state), and Richards retires from the superhero game to act as a kind of gatekeeper (thus allowing Marvel to remove the Fantastic Four from its lineup). Hickman was always a big game hunter, and I guess it was appropriate that he wound up telling the biggest Fantastic Four story ever, so we'd see what that finally looked like.
Superman #1 (DC)
Tomasi and Gleason reprise their Batman and Robin act, this time on the grand stage. Once again, a DC icon has a son struggling with his place in the world, and once again, Tomasi and Gleason are ready to knock it out of the park. I couldn't be happier for them. The story starts out pretty heavily focused on Superman, but then we meet his son Jonathan, who is struggling with his new powers. This was something Tomasi and Gleason touched on in Batman and Robin, when Damian briefly gained superpowers in the wake of his resurrection. It's one thing to have an indomitable youth on your hands. It's another when it's Superman's son. All these years, whenever someone wanted to tell a story about the young Superman, it was always the exception, and then more often than not something glossed over until he hit puberty and, in some continuities, became Superboy. This is the first time we'll see it play out in an ongoing capacity. Framed as Superman's son, this is an intriguing opportunity, and again, Tomasi and Gleason are well up to the task. They know when they need to provide dialogue, and when the story speaks for itself. Anyway, I'm hugely, hugely glad this is happening, no matter how long it lasts.
Titans: Rebirth #1 (DC)
The return of Wally West continues, as he reconnects with his oldest friends, the original Teen Titans, in a series of encounters that prove all over again how personal these DC stories are to these characters, and how they can connect on an emotional level with fans, too.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Secret Wars #1 (Marvel)
artist: Esad Ribic
So here we are, Secret Wars commence! Again! This time infused with far, far more Jonathan Hickman!
Oh Hickman, Hickman, Hickman...There are times I wonder whatever happened to the Hickman I knew when he was still just an Image standout. Then he was recruited by Marvel to translate his style to mainstream comics, a move I strongly suspect as motivated by a desire to find the next Grant Morrison.
Hickman's most notable run at Marvel to date has been with Fantastic Four and its spin-off FF (which stood for Future Foundation, by the way) even though he was most recently running around with Avengers sticking out of his pockets. Secret Wars, so far as I can tell, is either directly related or at least inspired by his Fantastic Four, and there they are at the heart of the story, too (so it's not such a hard assumption to make, really).
And Hickman is full Hickman, making stylistic choices and approaching the whole story from a way that makes perfect sense in a Jonathan Hickman sort of way. If there's a problem with any of this, it's that the whole process is in service to a story that boils down to: Marvel doing another Super Dramatic Event, which has been a problem since Civil War, when the company first tried to duplicate the emotional impact of DC's Identity Crisis. The more Marvel tried, the more it permanently warped the course of its own future into an increasingly grim, impossible to avoid destiny of destroying everything it had once been.
You see, Marvel used to be fairly buoyant, bouncing back after even events like House of M, which "only" decimated the X-Men line while completely rejuvenating the Avengers. The Ultimate line, however, somewhat jubilantly tore itself apart from the very beginning, particularly with The Ultimates, which is half of how the cinematic Avengers came to be (the other half being the style of Brian Michael Bendis, who is like classic Marvel on crack).
The higher the stakes, the less Marvel could pretend, as it has for more than fifty years, that its continuity was an unbroken chain of events. And so Secret Wars is the story, finally, that does what DC has been doing for decades, which is purposely break those chains. That's what this first issue is all about, turning aside everything (hey! there's big bad Thanos randomly inserted into a pack of other villains!) and preparing a giant reset button.
Which, depending what you think about Marvel, is either very, very wrong or very, very right. I guess we'll see. I'm certain Hickman will have fun along the way. As to whether or not readers do, too, is somewhat beyond the point. There are already a billion spin-offs ready to launch, giving the fans plenty of other ways to view this event, almost none of which will look like anything Hickman will be doing for the next seven issues...
Or, as Marvel has always done, having its cake and eating it too.
Friday, May 9, 2014
God is Dead #8 (Avatar)
artist: Juan Frigeri, Rafael Ortiz
First off, that cover looks an awful lot like an Age of Bronze (Eric Shanower's Trojan War epic) cover, but of course it is not. This is a Jonathan Hickman concept, which he launched himself, and has since passed on to Mike Costa.
Now, obviously if you've read enough of this blog you know I love Costa (I made some fairly creepy comments last time I brought him up in a somewhat funny manner!), though it's been hard finding him in best form in something other than the recently concluded Cobra comics over at IDW. Part of that is because he hasn't really done much else. There was his Blackhawks at DC (which, to my own regret I managed to criminally underrate to the point where I waited until after it was cancelled to properly sample), and also Smoke and Mirrors (which for some reason I also chose to skip; I can't explain).
Finally I went for broke and had a look at something well before it disappeared. And I'm mostly glad I did. God is Dead is kind of like Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods from the perspective of the gods. Coming eight issues in, I wasn't really lost, which is a good thing. I can't say I would go out of my way to read the series again, but it's not really anything to do with whatever Costa did in the issue so much as...basically, Hickman. Hickman, to my mind, has become notorious for grappling big concepts without really knowing what to do with them. Maybe Costa can salvage it. If anyone can, it's Costa. He's kind of a master of that craft at this point. Which is almost an argument to have another look, see where he takes it.
So yeah, that's my judgment. Word to the wise: if for some reason you're considering reading this for yourself and you think you might casually share it with a kid (just go with me here), you may want to think twice. There will be boobies.
(In some alternate universe, I've just launched a new blog, and it has a name that will bring in a million visitors instantly.)
Monday, May 5, 2014
Reading Comics #122 "Bull Moose Grab Bag"
I love grab bags. One of the shops I frequent these days, which is actually an indy music/movie chain store that also has comic books, is Bull Moose in Lewiston, Maine. I've gotten a few grab bags from them over the last few months, and during the course of my reviews of the stuff I've been reading lately you might have seen some fairly negative ones. Since I've cut back on my spending, I've been reading far fewer comics than I used to, only the stuff that I'm really certain I'll appreciate, so that's the secret origin of that. Bull Moose grab bags are a great bargain (since it's highly unlikely that there will be a lot of Lewiston, Maine, natives in my reading audience, this does not count as a shameless plug), ten recent comics for five bucks. "Recent" means within the past year, usually within the last few months (although the one I got this Saturday must have been one of the older bags they had, because its contents were near a year old).
So at this point I've decided to bring back the roundup feature I sometimes fall back on here. When there's something I haven't really enjoyed I don't have to try and justify it too much. But there can be real gems in the bunch as well!
Cable and X-Force #18 (Marvel)
Cable and Bishop are time-traveling mutants who are fascinating in theory but are more often than not incapable of living up to their potential, possibly because writers aren't really thinking about what they can do but rather what they can't, which is explore the dystopias they come from. Bishop has had a much rougher path to follow than Cable (notice which one is in the title, and has had a lot of series over the years and which...hasn't), although he's been a favorite of mine since I first saw him in the old early '90s X-Men cartoon. (Hey, and speaking of which, is either one of these guys in X-Men: Days of the Future Past?) They've got the same curse every Marvel mutant has, actually, only amplified. Everyone knows that the X-Men are supposed to be a persecuted lot, but the logical gymnastics writers take to keep them that way, or ignore this concept entirely, can sometimes be ridiculous. Recently they've settled on making more Magneto characters, which is to say compromised figures trying to do the right thing but making all the wrong moves (read: Cyclops). Add Bishop to that bunch, unfortunately. And so that's what this issue is all about. Apparently someone also thought it was a good idea to have not one but two teams of X-Force running around (because you can never have too many competing concepts in Marvel), and so that's also what this comic's about. It's not very good, alas. And the art looks a little weird at points. It screws up Cable, for instance. (Since when was his metallic arm a covering for an actual arm? Who am I kidding? I don't care!) Long story short: this is not a comic book I would have read deliberately.
Earth 2 #19 (DC)
I kept trying to find the recent annual that basically mainlined the awesome Flashpoint concept from a few years back of Thomas Wayne becoming Batman instead of his son, but failed everywhere I looked (even though I do digital comics now and am clearly aware of the Internet, I still love operating in the physical world), so it was pretty awesome to randomly come across an issue of the regular series. This series, in case you're not aware, is set in one of DC's alternate realities. It was launched by James Robinson as a surrogate Justice Society landscape but set in the same context as the debut arc from Geoff Johns' Justice League, so that the Darkseid siege of Earth was more successful and so everyone had to figure out how to pick up the pieces. At the start the new versions of the classic JSA superheroes were occupying a landscape devoid of the more familiar DC icons because those guys had been eliminated. But recently they've been resurfacing, including the new Batman. I think it's evolved beautifully, and under the auspices of Tom Taylor remains a leading contender for a mainstream superhero comic that you could pick as your standalone experience should you want to know what that's like without having to worry about picking up any other series. And this is a good issue. Like I've said about Justice League all along, Earth 2 could easily be construed as an ongoing event book. Closing in on two years, that's not a bad thing to consider reading at all. At the moment, Batman and the altered version of Superman have been occupying the center stage, coming ever closing to a reckoning. Well, like I said, good stuff.
Infinity #6 (Marvel)
This was last year's big Marvel event, sort of like something-something Thanos, something-something Inhumans (because Marvel keeps trying to make them a thing just like DC keeps trying to make the New Gods a thing, and only one of them actually has something interesting to explore) (and it's not Marvel). This was Jonathan Hickman's effort to duplicate the classic Jim Starlin stories featuring Thanos, no doubt thanks to the large-chin villain's cameo at the end of Avengers (although he won't appear as a main character until the third movie) (probably). I've always admired Hickman's ambition, but I'm not sure he's quite what Marvel keeps hoping he'll be, which is their own Grant Morrison. He's better than other writers who've tried to handle Thanos recently, but the result is still a fairly poor echo of Starlin's material. Still, the art is from Jim Cheung, who was half of the iconic original team on Young Avengers (along with Allan Heinberg). Good strong stuff there, anyway, as always. Glad to see him still considered a significant player.
Marvel Previews #14 (Marvel)
This is Marvel's separate catalog to the industry-standard, Diamond distributor version that handles...everyone else. I don't really know why this ended up in the grab bag. But it didn't exactly convince me to think any differently about Marvel's current output than I have been. On the cover is Nightcrawler, the latest returned-from-the-dead character. Oh, which reminds me, in case you had no idea, Nightcrawler's been dead lately. But apparently he got better.
Red Lanterns #25 (DC)
I haven't really been following the Green Lantern franchise, other than Geoff Johns, since the New 52 relaunch in 2011, but it's been nice knowing it exists, and in such force. One of the odder additions to the lineup was a Red Lanterns series, but it seems the longer it's lasted the better it's gotten. With Charles Soule, always good news, writing it these days, and Guy Gardner having become the face, it's probably as good or better than anything else you'll find in the lineup. Guy has repositioned the remaining members of the corps into defenders of his home turf, not so much on Earth but the territory (Space Sector 2814, to be precise). Soule has particular fun with Guy's allies, while he also continues the saga of Atrocitus, who once ruled the roost. It's as good a sci-fi title as I've read, which is actually pretty rare for a Green Lantern series. Which is pretty odd when you think about it.
The Sandman: Overture Special Edition #1 (Vertigo)
So, clearly I'm kind of the target audience for this series. I'm not sure how many new readers will be coming aboard for the journey, except maybe Neil Gaiman fans who came about after the end of the original series when he'd begun making a name for himself as a prose writer. The casual comics reader probably won't be spending too much time in the Vertigo sandbox, because with Image and a thousand indies running around, there's a lot more competition for the nonsuperhero set than ever before. As someone who loves Gaiman's Sandman but who hasn't read the complete series, I'm a curious phenomenon (for a lot of other reasons, too). I caught the original version of this debut issue of Overture, but was glad to randomly catch the special edition as well. It helped me digest it a little more, not just the bonus features, but being forced to read the comic itself over again. The Corinthian (the creepy dude with two additional mouths where his eyes ought to be) is in the spotlight once again, but only until our title hero stumbles into an existential conundrum that is not anywhere near finished by the end of the issue. Gaiman's approach is serialized in this effort, rather than in some of the fairly self-contained stories he told even in his arcs from the original Sandman. There's plenty to find familiar and interesting here. It certainly helps to have an artist the caliber of J.H. Williams III (there are few others capable of being anywhere near as awesome), whose sense of the page is virtually unparalleled, which as host of the special edition he's capable of walking through with the reader. If you're unsure of Overture, these special editions may actually be your better bet.
Sonic Universe #58 (Archie)
I'm just going to skip over this one. Better for you. Better for me. Better for them.
Swamp Thing #27 (DC)
There's whole corners of the New 52 landscape that have nothing to do with Superman or Batman or Green Lantern. No, really! One of them involves the so-called "dark" characters who most recently were handled by Vertigo rather than DC. Their return has been one of the most interesting things about the relauch (I know, if you hear much about it I bet you much more regularly hear all the complaints about what was lost rather than gained). I confess to not having really taken advantage of this stuff. But it's good. It's probably some of the best stuff DC has. But even fans who know about this corner find reasons to complain, especially since there have been a lot of crossovers. I don't see the problem with crossovers. If it's a shared universe, it's a lot more useful, sometimes, to have an out-and-out crossover rather than have a guest-star. Crossovers, when done right, have a good way of establishing context, and as far as I can tell, books like Swamp Thing have definitely understood that. Unsurprisingly, the writer here is also Charles Soule. The dude has quickly become indispensable. Where the heck did he come from??? A lot of what this particular character means comes from Alan Moore work from thirty years ago. This run, and even this very issue, is a chance for a fresh start. Good stuff.
Walking Dead #119 (Image)
(Comic Book Datebase locked me out of the issue listing without a login, so no cover for you.)
Obviously you know about Walking Dead. Whether from the comic or the TV series or both. Rather than discuss anything specifically from the issue, I want to address the letters column. In it, creator/writer Robert Kirkman discusses the future of the comic, how long he envisions it to last. A couple years ago he was talking a total length of 300 issues. And keep in mind we're only a third of the way there. But apparently now he's thinking 500. And he's already got fans talking about him padding his storytelling. Because of the huge success of the TV show, Kirkman could keep this thing going as long as he wants, long after the show is over. The one doesn't depend on the other. It just sounds ridiculous to me. No writer has five hundred issues worth of material to tell about one story. It's just this dude realizing he's got it made. No matter what else happens, he'll always have this in his back pocket. Now, there are certainly creators in any medium who spend their whole careers on the same property. In comics that's certainly been the case. But other than Dave Sim (who by the way did accomplish 300 issues, over the course of thirty years, on his Cerebus), there hasn't really been anyone who has managed to make such a dedicated run (it's worth noting Sim was his own artist). Kirkman probably ought to stop prognosticating. If fans are already complaining about his output now, he may have very few fans indeed decades from now who care about the latest shenanigans of survivors stumbling from scenario to scenario. Just saying.
Savage Wolverine #14 (Marvel)
Like Walking Dead above, I'm not really going to talk about the issue or the capable talents of Richard Isanove, but rather some of the ridiculous recent habits of Marvel. On the cover, as you can see, there's a giant #1 in the corner, even though this is not the first issue or some reboot (of a reboot of a reboot of a reboot...over the span of...just a handful of years). Marvel has always prided itself as never having rebooted its line. The stories you read today are theoretically related to stories that were done decades ago. And yet, there've been so many shenanigans that it doesn't really matter anymore. It's just one successful gimmick to keep fans interested after another. Such as the equally ridiculous Marvel Now! branding that is clearly Marvel's lackluster answer to DC's New 52. The cover also has the copy #14.now, which means...absolutely nothing. It's just one stupid, we're accessible! argument after another. I think in a few years Marvel will have finally worn out its welcome at the top. Hopefully. Well, I wish...
All images via Comic Book Database.
So at this point I've decided to bring back the roundup feature I sometimes fall back on here. When there's something I haven't really enjoyed I don't have to try and justify it too much. But there can be real gems in the bunch as well!
Cable and Bishop are time-traveling mutants who are fascinating in theory but are more often than not incapable of living up to their potential, possibly because writers aren't really thinking about what they can do but rather what they can't, which is explore the dystopias they come from. Bishop has had a much rougher path to follow than Cable (notice which one is in the title, and has had a lot of series over the years and which...hasn't), although he's been a favorite of mine since I first saw him in the old early '90s X-Men cartoon. (Hey, and speaking of which, is either one of these guys in X-Men: Days of the Future Past?) They've got the same curse every Marvel mutant has, actually, only amplified. Everyone knows that the X-Men are supposed to be a persecuted lot, but the logical gymnastics writers take to keep them that way, or ignore this concept entirely, can sometimes be ridiculous. Recently they've settled on making more Magneto characters, which is to say compromised figures trying to do the right thing but making all the wrong moves (read: Cyclops). Add Bishop to that bunch, unfortunately. And so that's what this issue is all about. Apparently someone also thought it was a good idea to have not one but two teams of X-Force running around (because you can never have too many competing concepts in Marvel), and so that's also what this comic's about. It's not very good, alas. And the art looks a little weird at points. It screws up Cable, for instance. (Since when was his metallic arm a covering for an actual arm? Who am I kidding? I don't care!) Long story short: this is not a comic book I would have read deliberately.
I kept trying to find the recent annual that basically mainlined the awesome Flashpoint concept from a few years back of Thomas Wayne becoming Batman instead of his son, but failed everywhere I looked (even though I do digital comics now and am clearly aware of the Internet, I still love operating in the physical world), so it was pretty awesome to randomly come across an issue of the regular series. This series, in case you're not aware, is set in one of DC's alternate realities. It was launched by James Robinson as a surrogate Justice Society landscape but set in the same context as the debut arc from Geoff Johns' Justice League, so that the Darkseid siege of Earth was more successful and so everyone had to figure out how to pick up the pieces. At the start the new versions of the classic JSA superheroes were occupying a landscape devoid of the more familiar DC icons because those guys had been eliminated. But recently they've been resurfacing, including the new Batman. I think it's evolved beautifully, and under the auspices of Tom Taylor remains a leading contender for a mainstream superhero comic that you could pick as your standalone experience should you want to know what that's like without having to worry about picking up any other series. And this is a good issue. Like I've said about Justice League all along, Earth 2 could easily be construed as an ongoing event book. Closing in on two years, that's not a bad thing to consider reading at all. At the moment, Batman and the altered version of Superman have been occupying the center stage, coming ever closing to a reckoning. Well, like I said, good stuff.
This was last year's big Marvel event, sort of like something-something Thanos, something-something Inhumans (because Marvel keeps trying to make them a thing just like DC keeps trying to make the New Gods a thing, and only one of them actually has something interesting to explore) (and it's not Marvel). This was Jonathan Hickman's effort to duplicate the classic Jim Starlin stories featuring Thanos, no doubt thanks to the large-chin villain's cameo at the end of Avengers (although he won't appear as a main character until the third movie) (probably). I've always admired Hickman's ambition, but I'm not sure he's quite what Marvel keeps hoping he'll be, which is their own Grant Morrison. He's better than other writers who've tried to handle Thanos recently, but the result is still a fairly poor echo of Starlin's material. Still, the art is from Jim Cheung, who was half of the iconic original team on Young Avengers (along with Allan Heinberg). Good strong stuff there, anyway, as always. Glad to see him still considered a significant player.
Marvel Previews #14 (Marvel)
This is Marvel's separate catalog to the industry-standard, Diamond distributor version that handles...everyone else. I don't really know why this ended up in the grab bag. But it didn't exactly convince me to think any differently about Marvel's current output than I have been. On the cover is Nightcrawler, the latest returned-from-the-dead character. Oh, which reminds me, in case you had no idea, Nightcrawler's been dead lately. But apparently he got better.
I haven't really been following the Green Lantern franchise, other than Geoff Johns, since the New 52 relaunch in 2011, but it's been nice knowing it exists, and in such force. One of the odder additions to the lineup was a Red Lanterns series, but it seems the longer it's lasted the better it's gotten. With Charles Soule, always good news, writing it these days, and Guy Gardner having become the face, it's probably as good or better than anything else you'll find in the lineup. Guy has repositioned the remaining members of the corps into defenders of his home turf, not so much on Earth but the territory (Space Sector 2814, to be precise). Soule has particular fun with Guy's allies, while he also continues the saga of Atrocitus, who once ruled the roost. It's as good a sci-fi title as I've read, which is actually pretty rare for a Green Lantern series. Which is pretty odd when you think about it.
So, clearly I'm kind of the target audience for this series. I'm not sure how many new readers will be coming aboard for the journey, except maybe Neil Gaiman fans who came about after the end of the original series when he'd begun making a name for himself as a prose writer. The casual comics reader probably won't be spending too much time in the Vertigo sandbox, because with Image and a thousand indies running around, there's a lot more competition for the nonsuperhero set than ever before. As someone who loves Gaiman's Sandman but who hasn't read the complete series, I'm a curious phenomenon (for a lot of other reasons, too). I caught the original version of this debut issue of Overture, but was glad to randomly catch the special edition as well. It helped me digest it a little more, not just the bonus features, but being forced to read the comic itself over again. The Corinthian (the creepy dude with two additional mouths where his eyes ought to be) is in the spotlight once again, but only until our title hero stumbles into an existential conundrum that is not anywhere near finished by the end of the issue. Gaiman's approach is serialized in this effort, rather than in some of the fairly self-contained stories he told even in his arcs from the original Sandman. There's plenty to find familiar and interesting here. It certainly helps to have an artist the caliber of J.H. Williams III (there are few others capable of being anywhere near as awesome), whose sense of the page is virtually unparalleled, which as host of the special edition he's capable of walking through with the reader. If you're unsure of Overture, these special editions may actually be your better bet.
I'm just going to skip over this one. Better for you. Better for me. Better for them.
There's whole corners of the New 52 landscape that have nothing to do with Superman or Batman or Green Lantern. No, really! One of them involves the so-called "dark" characters who most recently were handled by Vertigo rather than DC. Their return has been one of the most interesting things about the relauch (I know, if you hear much about it I bet you much more regularly hear all the complaints about what was lost rather than gained). I confess to not having really taken advantage of this stuff. But it's good. It's probably some of the best stuff DC has. But even fans who know about this corner find reasons to complain, especially since there have been a lot of crossovers. I don't see the problem with crossovers. If it's a shared universe, it's a lot more useful, sometimes, to have an out-and-out crossover rather than have a guest-star. Crossovers, when done right, have a good way of establishing context, and as far as I can tell, books like Swamp Thing have definitely understood that. Unsurprisingly, the writer here is also Charles Soule. The dude has quickly become indispensable. Where the heck did he come from??? A lot of what this particular character means comes from Alan Moore work from thirty years ago. This run, and even this very issue, is a chance for a fresh start. Good stuff.
Walking Dead #119 (Image)
(Comic Book Datebase locked me out of the issue listing without a login, so no cover for you.)
Obviously you know about Walking Dead. Whether from the comic or the TV series or both. Rather than discuss anything specifically from the issue, I want to address the letters column. In it, creator/writer Robert Kirkman discusses the future of the comic, how long he envisions it to last. A couple years ago he was talking a total length of 300 issues. And keep in mind we're only a third of the way there. But apparently now he's thinking 500. And he's already got fans talking about him padding his storytelling. Because of the huge success of the TV show, Kirkman could keep this thing going as long as he wants, long after the show is over. The one doesn't depend on the other. It just sounds ridiculous to me. No writer has five hundred issues worth of material to tell about one story. It's just this dude realizing he's got it made. No matter what else happens, he'll always have this in his back pocket. Now, there are certainly creators in any medium who spend their whole careers on the same property. In comics that's certainly been the case. But other than Dave Sim (who by the way did accomplish 300 issues, over the course of thirty years, on his Cerebus), there hasn't really been anyone who has managed to make such a dedicated run (it's worth noting Sim was his own artist). Kirkman probably ought to stop prognosticating. If fans are already complaining about his output now, he may have very few fans indeed decades from now who care about the latest shenanigans of survivors stumbling from scenario to scenario. Just saying.
Like Walking Dead above, I'm not really going to talk about the issue or the capable talents of Richard Isanove, but rather some of the ridiculous recent habits of Marvel. On the cover, as you can see, there's a giant #1 in the corner, even though this is not the first issue or some reboot (of a reboot of a reboot of a reboot...over the span of...just a handful of years). Marvel has always prided itself as never having rebooted its line. The stories you read today are theoretically related to stories that were done decades ago. And yet, there've been so many shenanigans that it doesn't really matter anymore. It's just one successful gimmick to keep fans interested after another. Such as the equally ridiculous Marvel Now! branding that is clearly Marvel's lackluster answer to DC's New 52. The cover also has the copy #14.now, which means...absolutely nothing. It's just one stupid, we're accessible! argument after another. I think in a few years Marvel will have finally worn out its welcome at the top. Hopefully. Well, I wish...
All images via Comic Book Database.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Reading Comics #113 "Free Comic Book Day, Part 2"
By Saturday evening I'd lost my opportunity to experience Free Comic Book Day in its purest form, and yet the hangover proved perhaps more interesting than the regularly-scheduled celebration. I've previously discussed my visit to Muse Comics in Colorado Springs on the day itself. Now we'll talk about Sunday.
There are a surprising number of comic book stores in Colorado Springs. As of this year there are even two shops for Escape Velocity, formerly known as Bargain Comics, which should be considered the godfather of them all. There's also Heroes & Dragons, which was my entry point in the city when I moved here in 2007. Ed's Cards and Comics is the third of these, rounding out the shops carrying new releases on a regular basis. Yesterday I didn't go to any of these. Instead I felt like making a trip to CK Comics in Manitou Springs, just to visit it for the first time.
After some initial scouring I wasn't terribly impressed. It seemed like much more of a comics novelty shop than anything, and doesn't even overtly display new releases. Yet it had been advertised by the FCBD site as participating in the event. I already knew that Heroes & Dragons doesn't participate. Escape Velocity is usually good to have some extra copies after the day itself, but doubtfully the main ones. So CK it was...hopefully. I looked and I looked. Eventually I found one of those comic book boxes on the floor, and it contains oodles of FCBD comics. Not all of them, but at this point I'm far more of a beggar than a chooser, right?
Still, this was a bountiful offering. Here's what I got and what I thought of them:
Bongo Free-for-All (Bongo)
This publisher almost exclusively deals with Simpsons comics (with Futurama tossed in every now and again). I've read some of it, strictly on a sporadic basis. I love the cartoon, have for years (but mostly must abstain from the ever-persistent is-it-worse-than-before? debate as I don't get to watch on a regular basis these days, although every time I've watched new episodes I've still been amused), and the comics do a good job of capturing its spirit in a different format. The characters do in fact translate well even without their distinctive voices. There are several stories in the issue. The first involves Bart behaving atypically well, which itself isn't the apocalyptic development everyone takes t for, but merely the result of a bet he made with Milhouse, his best friend. It's the lead and best story. Another one features L'il Homer concerning his reluctance to take a bath and his father (known as Grampa or Abe) trying to tell him a cautionary tale that is welcomed much differently than intended. The art takes subtle liberties from the Matt Groening archetypes, which is always nice to see.
Chakra the Invincible (Graphic India)
The most notable thing about this one is that it's the latest of the latter-day Stan Lee creations. What's different about this one is that it's very much from the basic '60s archetype (I guess that's the word of the day) he established at Marvel, set in India. I don't know if there's a wide American audience for this, but seems much more natural and capable of sustaining more than just a novelty act than just about anything he's done for years. He's credited for concept and story, but he's not a writer. The other thing of note is the "Invincible" subtitle. Invincible is also a long-running Robert Kirkman series over at Image (a hundred issues and counting!), so it's a little funny to see this word (also frequently used in association with Iron Man) in use again.
Grimm #0 (Dynamite)
Dynamite is one of many smaller publishers that lives and breathes on licensed comics and established properties. Grimm is also a TV series, one that seems to be amassing a cult audience that grows over time. It's pretty clever, and this issue explains the whole concept, how the main character is a descendant of the famous brothers who helped codify fairy tales. He alone is capable of seeing the true faces of the monsters who have integrated themselves into modern society. The issue also includes a preview for the upcoming Damsels, which is a lot like what Bill Willingham has been doing in Vertigo's Fables, or the TV series Once Upon a Time, or even the cheesecakey comics of Zenescope. The writers, Leah Moore and John Reppion, have been Dynamite's in-house literary classics/adaptation experts since their work with Alice in Wonderland and Dracula. With the success of this spring's Oz the Great and Powerful in movie theaters, it may very well prove that fairy tale characters are due to succeed vampires and zombies as the new obsession.
Infinity (Marvel)
A preview for an upcoming event book, Infinity is also a canny bid to capitalize on the appearance of Thanos in the credits of last summer's blockbuster Avengers flick. The company is making a concerted effort to shift its space-based properties to greater prominence, and this is a huge art of that. The writer is Jonathan Hickman, who continues to try and elevate his name in the comics pantheon (Thanos was previously the baby of legend Jim Starlin). The title is a nod to the classic Infinity Gauntlet (and its various sequels), which is also one of the odd bit of convergences between Marvel and DC, which bases a lot of its legacy on Crisis on Infinite Earths (and its various sequels). Most of this preview with weird alien creatures and a mythology that only in its final pages points to Thanos, thereby making the whole thing exactly like Avengers. (Marvel tends to repeat itself a lot.) The artist is Jim Cheung, whom I still associate with the original Young Avengers. He's got a playful yet serious style, which looks quite different in this altered context. There's also a reprint of a vintage Thanos appearance. For the record, Thanos has my vote as undisputed best Marvel villain.
KaBoom! Summer Blast! (Boom!)
KaBoom is the young readers imprint of Boom!, a company that at this point might as well admit that it has all but been driven into irrelevance by the licensed properties on display here. Adventure Time is a crudely animated cartoon series that captures the spirit of the way children play (when they're playing something other than video games). Amusingly (and confusingly), the story of Finn and Jake featured here takes the form of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books. There are a lot of crazy arrows directing how to read it, but it's almost as much fun (and appropriate) to read all of the possible directions at the same time. There are a few other such segments (including one based on te Ice Age movies), and there are also ones based on Peanuts and Garfield, two classic comic strips. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz has been dead for more than a decade, and newspapers have continued to rerun the old strips, plus the regular airing of the Christmas TV special, but it's good that these characters live on in new adventures. Amusingly, this one is all about Charlie Brown teaching the reader how to draw Linus, all while obsessing over baseball. In fact, he uses baseball images to guide the entire process! It's good stuff. If this special guides readers to any of the featured titles, would think they would undoubtedly be Adventure Time and Peanuts, unless readers don't like imaginative storytelling.
Star Wars/Captain Midnight/Avatar: The Last Airbender (Dark Horse)
This one's a grab bag, too, features three different spotlights, two of which are featured on the flipbook format's covers (the first and last I've listed). I'm mostly familiar with Last Airbender thanks to the M. Night Shyamalan movie (which I loved). The story in this issue is a tad like the Phil Hester comic I talked about in Part 1 of this FCBD series. The Captain Midnight episode, meanwhile, is part of the company's periodic effort to enter the superhero game, mostly using characters they tried in the '90s as well. A lot of these smaller publishers seem to equate prior publishing history as a built-in legacy that will compete with those of DC and Marvel. I think they're slightly mistaken. Captain Midnight is very much a pulp hero, which is something Dark Horse is going for this time (and so did DC when it did the Doc Savage comics a few years ago, in a line that also revived Will Eisner's The Spirit, while some other publishers are doing every unsigned Golden Age hero). Anyway, the final one is Brian Wood on Star Wars. Dark Horse has done thousands of Star Wars comics at this point, as much the definition of the expanded saga as any of the books. "Expanded" means mostly noncanonical, but that doesn't seem to bother the publisher. Wood is an indy star, and has recently burnished that reputation with Dark Horse as writer of The Massive (which reminded me of an earlier and superior series from the same publisher known as Zero Killer). He seems to think it's just as well as anyone else who has written Star Wars in comics or books to pretty much play fast and loose with logic in order to have "kewl" moments. In fact, that's what his whole story with Darth Vader, set just before the events of A New Hope, is all about, and yes, Boba Fett (as is often the case with these comics) is shoehorned into the story. Although Dark Horse does score some points from me for the soon-to-launch comics based on George Lucas's original notes for The Star Wars.
The Walking Dead (Image)
The extremely clever thing that Robert Kirkman did for this special issue was to include new material. Most of it is reprinted from origins of characters like Michonne and the Governor (both of whom were heavily featured in the latest season of the TV series), but one of the more obscure characters (as far as my experience goes) also gets some significant love. Tyreese appeared pretty early in the comics, but has really only just popped in the series. He's the one who gets the exclusive material. Apparently he was envisioned as the replacement Shane, who in my mind not only completely stole the second season but was also the best reason to watch both the season and series as a whole, emblematic of what I think is the true strength of the series, not the sensationalism but the very human foibles on display, whether in extreme circumstances or otherwise (although yes, Darryl was an immediate standout for me, too). I've read the comic sporadically (although pretty regularly for a few months), but I think the series does it more justice. Kirkman, especially in this special spotlighting reactions to a suddenly apocalyptic setting, does a good job of being thought-provoking, but I'm not sure if he's just incredibly cynical (although not as much as Cormac McCarthy was in The Road, and certainly not as redemptive as Stephen King in The Stand) or taking an extremely long time to explore his story (he says he envisions two hundred [or maybe it was three?] issues), and that just seems excessive and leaves most of it seem unfocused rather than methodical.
There are a surprising number of comic book stores in Colorado Springs. As of this year there are even two shops for Escape Velocity, formerly known as Bargain Comics, which should be considered the godfather of them all. There's also Heroes & Dragons, which was my entry point in the city when I moved here in 2007. Ed's Cards and Comics is the third of these, rounding out the shops carrying new releases on a regular basis. Yesterday I didn't go to any of these. Instead I felt like making a trip to CK Comics in Manitou Springs, just to visit it for the first time.
After some initial scouring I wasn't terribly impressed. It seemed like much more of a comics novelty shop than anything, and doesn't even overtly display new releases. Yet it had been advertised by the FCBD site as participating in the event. I already knew that Heroes & Dragons doesn't participate. Escape Velocity is usually good to have some extra copies after the day itself, but doubtfully the main ones. So CK it was...hopefully. I looked and I looked. Eventually I found one of those comic book boxes on the floor, and it contains oodles of FCBD comics. Not all of them, but at this point I'm far more of a beggar than a chooser, right?
Still, this was a bountiful offering. Here's what I got and what I thought of them:
Bongo Free-for-All (Bongo)
This publisher almost exclusively deals with Simpsons comics (with Futurama tossed in every now and again). I've read some of it, strictly on a sporadic basis. I love the cartoon, have for years (but mostly must abstain from the ever-persistent is-it-worse-than-before? debate as I don't get to watch on a regular basis these days, although every time I've watched new episodes I've still been amused), and the comics do a good job of capturing its spirit in a different format. The characters do in fact translate well even without their distinctive voices. There are several stories in the issue. The first involves Bart behaving atypically well, which itself isn't the apocalyptic development everyone takes t for, but merely the result of a bet he made with Milhouse, his best friend. It's the lead and best story. Another one features L'il Homer concerning his reluctance to take a bath and his father (known as Grampa or Abe) trying to tell him a cautionary tale that is welcomed much differently than intended. The art takes subtle liberties from the Matt Groening archetypes, which is always nice to see.
Chakra the Invincible (Graphic India)
The most notable thing about this one is that it's the latest of the latter-day Stan Lee creations. What's different about this one is that it's very much from the basic '60s archetype (I guess that's the word of the day) he established at Marvel, set in India. I don't know if there's a wide American audience for this, but seems much more natural and capable of sustaining more than just a novelty act than just about anything he's done for years. He's credited for concept and story, but he's not a writer. The other thing of note is the "Invincible" subtitle. Invincible is also a long-running Robert Kirkman series over at Image (a hundred issues and counting!), so it's a little funny to see this word (also frequently used in association with Iron Man) in use again.
Grimm #0 (Dynamite)
Dynamite is one of many smaller publishers that lives and breathes on licensed comics and established properties. Grimm is also a TV series, one that seems to be amassing a cult audience that grows over time. It's pretty clever, and this issue explains the whole concept, how the main character is a descendant of the famous brothers who helped codify fairy tales. He alone is capable of seeing the true faces of the monsters who have integrated themselves into modern society. The issue also includes a preview for the upcoming Damsels, which is a lot like what Bill Willingham has been doing in Vertigo's Fables, or the TV series Once Upon a Time, or even the cheesecakey comics of Zenescope. The writers, Leah Moore and John Reppion, have been Dynamite's in-house literary classics/adaptation experts since their work with Alice in Wonderland and Dracula. With the success of this spring's Oz the Great and Powerful in movie theaters, it may very well prove that fairy tale characters are due to succeed vampires and zombies as the new obsession.
Infinity (Marvel)
A preview for an upcoming event book, Infinity is also a canny bid to capitalize on the appearance of Thanos in the credits of last summer's blockbuster Avengers flick. The company is making a concerted effort to shift its space-based properties to greater prominence, and this is a huge art of that. The writer is Jonathan Hickman, who continues to try and elevate his name in the comics pantheon (Thanos was previously the baby of legend Jim Starlin). The title is a nod to the classic Infinity Gauntlet (and its various sequels), which is also one of the odd bit of convergences between Marvel and DC, which bases a lot of its legacy on Crisis on Infinite Earths (and its various sequels). Most of this preview with weird alien creatures and a mythology that only in its final pages points to Thanos, thereby making the whole thing exactly like Avengers. (Marvel tends to repeat itself a lot.) The artist is Jim Cheung, whom I still associate with the original Young Avengers. He's got a playful yet serious style, which looks quite different in this altered context. There's also a reprint of a vintage Thanos appearance. For the record, Thanos has my vote as undisputed best Marvel villain.
KaBoom! Summer Blast! (Boom!)
KaBoom is the young readers imprint of Boom!, a company that at this point might as well admit that it has all but been driven into irrelevance by the licensed properties on display here. Adventure Time is a crudely animated cartoon series that captures the spirit of the way children play (when they're playing something other than video games). Amusingly (and confusingly), the story of Finn and Jake featured here takes the form of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books. There are a lot of crazy arrows directing how to read it, but it's almost as much fun (and appropriate) to read all of the possible directions at the same time. There are a few other such segments (including one based on te Ice Age movies), and there are also ones based on Peanuts and Garfield, two classic comic strips. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz has been dead for more than a decade, and newspapers have continued to rerun the old strips, plus the regular airing of the Christmas TV special, but it's good that these characters live on in new adventures. Amusingly, this one is all about Charlie Brown teaching the reader how to draw Linus, all while obsessing over baseball. In fact, he uses baseball images to guide the entire process! It's good stuff. If this special guides readers to any of the featured titles, would think they would undoubtedly be Adventure Time and Peanuts, unless readers don't like imaginative storytelling.
Star Wars/Captain Midnight/Avatar: The Last Airbender (Dark Horse)
This one's a grab bag, too, features three different spotlights, two of which are featured on the flipbook format's covers (the first and last I've listed). I'm mostly familiar with Last Airbender thanks to the M. Night Shyamalan movie (which I loved). The story in this issue is a tad like the Phil Hester comic I talked about in Part 1 of this FCBD series. The Captain Midnight episode, meanwhile, is part of the company's periodic effort to enter the superhero game, mostly using characters they tried in the '90s as well. A lot of these smaller publishers seem to equate prior publishing history as a built-in legacy that will compete with those of DC and Marvel. I think they're slightly mistaken. Captain Midnight is very much a pulp hero, which is something Dark Horse is going for this time (and so did DC when it did the Doc Savage comics a few years ago, in a line that also revived Will Eisner's The Spirit, while some other publishers are doing every unsigned Golden Age hero). Anyway, the final one is Brian Wood on Star Wars. Dark Horse has done thousands of Star Wars comics at this point, as much the definition of the expanded saga as any of the books. "Expanded" means mostly noncanonical, but that doesn't seem to bother the publisher. Wood is an indy star, and has recently burnished that reputation with Dark Horse as writer of The Massive (which reminded me of an earlier and superior series from the same publisher known as Zero Killer). He seems to think it's just as well as anyone else who has written Star Wars in comics or books to pretty much play fast and loose with logic in order to have "kewl" moments. In fact, that's what his whole story with Darth Vader, set just before the events of A New Hope, is all about, and yes, Boba Fett (as is often the case with these comics) is shoehorned into the story. Although Dark Horse does score some points from me for the soon-to-launch comics based on George Lucas's original notes for The Star Wars.
The Walking Dead (Image)
The extremely clever thing that Robert Kirkman did for this special issue was to include new material. Most of it is reprinted from origins of characters like Michonne and the Governor (both of whom were heavily featured in the latest season of the TV series), but one of the more obscure characters (as far as my experience goes) also gets some significant love. Tyreese appeared pretty early in the comics, but has really only just popped in the series. He's the one who gets the exclusive material. Apparently he was envisioned as the replacement Shane, who in my mind not only completely stole the second season but was also the best reason to watch both the season and series as a whole, emblematic of what I think is the true strength of the series, not the sensationalism but the very human foibles on display, whether in extreme circumstances or otherwise (although yes, Darryl was an immediate standout for me, too). I've read the comic sporadically (although pretty regularly for a few months), but I think the series does it more justice. Kirkman, especially in this special spotlighting reactions to a suddenly apocalyptic setting, does a good job of being thought-provoking, but I'm not sure if he's just incredibly cynical (although not as much as Cormac McCarthy was in The Road, and certainly not as redemptive as Stephen King in The Stand) or taking an extremely long time to explore his story (he says he envisions two hundred [or maybe it was three?] issues), and that just seems excessive and leaves most of it seem unfocused rather than methodical.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
East of West #1 (Image)
writer: Jonathan Hickman
artist: Nick Dragotta
East of West is a new title, and by itself probably has no real name recognition, but its creators are much more notable. First is writer Jonathan Hickman, who made his name working at Image on such titles as The Nightly News (an issue or two of which I read at the time) and Pax Romana, but whose work with Marvel in recent years (notably Fantastic Four and its Hickman spin-off FF) has elevated his awareness among comic book fans in general. Hopefully East of West will help do the same for artist Nick Dragotta.
Apparently he's done quite a bit of work for Marvel, but the only one I'm personally familiar with is Vengeance, a mini-series he did a couple of years ago. It was sensational, in large part thanks to Dragotta. Fans didn't really take notice, however. Thankfully Hickman has noticed him. Chances are that simply in association, especially in a project like Hickman's homecoming (in addition to The Manhattan Projects), Dragotta's star is bound to rise a little.
Here's another association I'm going to make, this time to American Vampire, the Scott Snyder/Rafael Albuquerque Vertigo series. In the early issues, Stephen King contributed a serialized story that to my mind is similar to East of West. The King element was always my favorite element of American Vampire, so from me this is a huge compliment.
Hickman is famously high concept as a writer. I'm a Grant Morrison guy myself, so I've always been curious about Hickman. The two really aren't that much more similar besides the penchant for big ideas. Hickman's big idea in East of West is what if Native Americans had emerged as a significant power during the Civil War. Needless to say, the landscape changes drastically. Central to this new landscape is the Second Book of Revelation and a waking vision (think Black Elk Speaks) that become known as The Message.
I also happen to be obsessed with an Oni series called Wasteland. I've written about it here many times. East of West might be said to be Wasteland from the other side, where the big mystery is explored from the other side. We know what we're supposed to be following in this instance, rather than experiencing it the same way as the characters.
If I can make one last allusion, I'll also reference Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, also published by Image. In this context, East of West is like tracking our main characters outside of isolation.
The more I talk and think about it, the more I like East of West, actually. I came to it because of Dragotta, much as the same reason I still think positively of American Vampire for Albuquerque. I don't often talk about comics from the perspective of an appreciation for the art, although of course that's half the battle, so it feels nice to acknowledge that for a change.
This one's worth a look.
artist: Nick Dragotta
East of West is a new title, and by itself probably has no real name recognition, but its creators are much more notable. First is writer Jonathan Hickman, who made his name working at Image on such titles as The Nightly News (an issue or two of which I read at the time) and Pax Romana, but whose work with Marvel in recent years (notably Fantastic Four and its Hickman spin-off FF) has elevated his awareness among comic book fans in general. Hopefully East of West will help do the same for artist Nick Dragotta.
Apparently he's done quite a bit of work for Marvel, but the only one I'm personally familiar with is Vengeance, a mini-series he did a couple of years ago. It was sensational, in large part thanks to Dragotta. Fans didn't really take notice, however. Thankfully Hickman has noticed him. Chances are that simply in association, especially in a project like Hickman's homecoming (in addition to The Manhattan Projects), Dragotta's star is bound to rise a little.
Here's another association I'm going to make, this time to American Vampire, the Scott Snyder/Rafael Albuquerque Vertigo series. In the early issues, Stephen King contributed a serialized story that to my mind is similar to East of West. The King element was always my favorite element of American Vampire, so from me this is a huge compliment.
Hickman is famously high concept as a writer. I'm a Grant Morrison guy myself, so I've always been curious about Hickman. The two really aren't that much more similar besides the penchant for big ideas. Hickman's big idea in East of West is what if Native Americans had emerged as a significant power during the Civil War. Needless to say, the landscape changes drastically. Central to this new landscape is the Second Book of Revelation and a waking vision (think Black Elk Speaks) that become known as The Message.
I also happen to be obsessed with an Oni series called Wasteland. I've written about it here many times. East of West might be said to be Wasteland from the other side, where the big mystery is explored from the other side. We know what we're supposed to be following in this instance, rather than experiencing it the same way as the characters.
If I can make one last allusion, I'll also reference Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, also published by Image. In this context, East of West is like tracking our main characters outside of isolation.
The more I talk and think about it, the more I like East of West, actually. I came to it because of Dragotta, much as the same reason I still think positively of American Vampire for Albuquerque. I don't often talk about comics from the perspective of an appreciation for the art, although of course that's half the battle, so it feels nice to acknowledge that for a change.
This one's worth a look.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Last Week's Comics and an Epic Showdown
It should be noted that sometimes "last week's comics" will include some purchases that were not actually released last week.
Aquaman #10 (DC) Ever since Brightest Day, Geoff Johns has made it his mission to revive Aquaman as a legitimate presence in comics. DC has tried just about everything in many different revivals to achieve this over the years, but Johns alone seems to have had the radical approach of merely making Aquaman himself interesting. As he's done with Green Lantern, Johns has achieved this by widening the scope of Aquaman's career. Previous efforts to this regard have always centered on underwater kingdoms, and while some of these have an impact, they did not succeed in making the character for whom these kingdoms were created...relevant. Aquaman is not defined by underwater kingdoms. If he were, he'd be no better than Black Panther, an incredibly negligent ruler, spending so much time hanging out with other superheroes who notably have no interest in this faraway responsibility. Some creators have also tried to make his human origins interesting, to little avail other than extremely temporary visibility. Aquaman, unfortunately, is a character who can be summed up in an entirely dismissive fashion: he talks to fish. Johns decided to ignore all that and instead reveal a side of the character that speaks to his strengths in a far empowering way, as a guy who had an entirely separate group of allies who link his undersea world to surface concerns in ways that are still being explored nearly a year into the series and a rivalry with his archnemesis that has turned decidedly personal. Aquaman has always been portrayed as the victim in his stories (which is really weird), but Johns is turning him into a multifaceted and even culpable figure. Like Wonder Woman, he has always been a character who was supposed to be important just because he supposed to, and during Flashpoint last year their common significance as warriors was made plain. Yet being a warrior isn't enough. But being a tragic hero might be. This is a good issue to see how Johns is accomplishing this.
Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #2 of 4 (DC) What's absolutely fascinating about this issue has a connection to Alan Moore's story that could almost have been entirely forgotten in the midst of hype for being the best superhero story ever told. Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner remind readers of the social significance of it, too, as they outline the insidious plot to turn drugs into the next big consumer hit, a habit that doesn't need to provide anything lasting in order to create its own constant demand. Laurie is just beginning her career as a costumed crimefighter, something she never thought she'd do, but it's another habit, in effect, that she can't overcome. If there's a message, it's that one of these habits is productive and the other isn't.
Cobra #15 (IDW) Longtime fans of G.I. Joe will know that one of the big developments in the late 80s continuity was the revelation that Cobra Commander had a hidden son named Billy. Billy hits Cobra in a big way this issue, only he's not the boy we used to know, but a man, who in the opening pages sounds suspiciously like the Cobra from earlier issues, the ones trying to sell the organization to the public. If he's not evil, then he certainly has an ego, and could have easily been used by his father's allies, possibly without him even realizing it. It's this malleable sense of morality that allows this series to remain so brilliant. You know who the bad guys and the good guys are, but they're both forced to exist in a world where it's not so easy to keep those distinctions separate when something needs to be done. This is not a G.I. Joe book in any traditional sense. You don't even need to care about G.I. Joe to enjoy it, and I'm certain that you don't even have to have read the several other dozen issues behind this one to start enjoying it now.
Justice League #11 (DC) I don't think Graves will go down as one of the most memorable villains in JLA history, and I don't think Geoff Johns thinks so, either. He's a catalyst, a means to an end, to make a point, that this team is not perfect, even though its reputation in the book and as a comics commodity suggests so. Readers from any number of eras will tell you that the Justice League is fallible. The different and the distinction Johns is making here, and certainly in this issue, is that even a membership comprised of its most iconic members has visible chinks in its armor. The underlying story from the beginning of the series has been Wonder Woman's journey, and it's fair to say that Johns has been doing more than other writer of the team to make her relevant. Her relationship with Steve Trevor, which takes a considerable step this issue (but not one you might be thinking of), has been at the center of this significance, but the big splash is her fight with Superman and Green Lantern. It's something of a cliche to try and help out a character's reputation by putting them in a situation like this, but for Wonder Woman, she's rarely had a moment like this. In recent years she's come to be defined more closely as a warrior than ever before, but Johns has managed to channel that into someone who can be irrational and rational at the same time. She can be reasoned with. (It's also amazing that Johns is willing to show Green Lantern as so vulnerable in these pages, considering he's gone a good way into making the character his signature work in comics.) The Shazam backup continues, and can it really been only the fifth installment? Johns and Gary Frank are owning the former Captain Marvel as no one since Jerry Ordway. I don't think he'll be overlooked again anytime soon.
Nightwing #11 (DC) The subplot of Detective Nie that Kyle Higgins has been sowing throughout this run is starting to come to a head. I don't know why Nightwing seems to elicit these kinds of characters (Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson previously worked similarly extended angles), but I'm glad it's another thing that Higgins is most assuredly doing write in this book. There's plenty of story threads to keep reader interested this issue, including a visit from Sonia Branch, the daughter of Tony Zucco (the mobster responsible for the death of Dick Grayson's parents), who turns our hero down for a loan due to the established risk involved; a conversation with Damian, loaded with references to recent comics that also helps Nightwing riddle out some detective work; and the villain Paragon, who's there to exploit as much as possible. Guest artist Andres Guinaldo is hit-and-miss, especially with Dick's hair for some reason, but the coloring makes a good contrast of Nightwing's basic gray and the new red swash. All in all, this is a book that rewards regular readers.
Now here I'm going to talk about some recent new series from cult favorite writers Jonathan Hickman, Brian Wood, and Brian K. Vaughan. Hickman's been famous recently for his work with Marvel, notably Fantastic Four, but he originally made his name on creator-owned titles for Image. Wood is known for Demo and DMZ, while Vaughan is probably the biggest name of the bunch, having crafted Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, two long-running titles that had readers invested in the unusual lives of their central protagonists.
I read these issues last week:
The Manhattan Projects #3 (Image)
from Hickman
The Massive #2 (Dark Horse)
from Wood
Saga #3 (Image)
from Vaughan
Of the three, I'm most impressed by Saga. Hickman is known for having a wild imagination, but cycling it through either historical figures or established characters (sometimes blending the two, as in S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Manhattan Projects is not so different from this mold, even though it seems to have a little more breathing room than usual. As the title implies, it deals with the development of the atomic bomb, and Hickman's idea of the greater things going on around it. He gets to play with Einstein, Roosevelt, and a wacked-out version of Truman (if this is even close to truth, my history teachers have a lot of explaining to do), among others. This particular issue handles the actual deployment of the bomb that resulted, and so it's fun (insofar as that bomb was "fun") to read Hickman's depiction of these events, although there's little indication of what exactly he's doing to build a larger story. Maybe I need to read another issue. The Massive, meanwhile, appears to be part-Wood and equally parts Dark Horse reviving Arvid Nelson's brilliant Zero Killer, but in a decentralized form. For this reason (because I loved Zero Killer), I'm perhaps less inclined to view Massive as a singular creation, even though it's a book (like all three of these titles) that has a considerable amount of buzz around it, mostly because of Wood's involvement. Saga, meanwhile, is something totally new from Vaughan, at least as far as my experience goes. Maybe his Runaways was similar. At any rate, this is a story set on an alien world, and Vaughan has embraced its otherworldliness, almost to a degree that I must ask you to see for yourself. It's like Neil Gaiman doing Pixar (Coraline only gives you so much of a clue). If you ever sampled Grant Morrison and had a hard time figuring him out, Vaughan might have provided an adequate window into that kind of storytelling, like Seaguy but without being a parody of superhero comics. This one demands to be read again.
Aquaman #10 (DC) Ever since Brightest Day, Geoff Johns has made it his mission to revive Aquaman as a legitimate presence in comics. DC has tried just about everything in many different revivals to achieve this over the years, but Johns alone seems to have had the radical approach of merely making Aquaman himself interesting. As he's done with Green Lantern, Johns has achieved this by widening the scope of Aquaman's career. Previous efforts to this regard have always centered on underwater kingdoms, and while some of these have an impact, they did not succeed in making the character for whom these kingdoms were created...relevant. Aquaman is not defined by underwater kingdoms. If he were, he'd be no better than Black Panther, an incredibly negligent ruler, spending so much time hanging out with other superheroes who notably have no interest in this faraway responsibility. Some creators have also tried to make his human origins interesting, to little avail other than extremely temporary visibility. Aquaman, unfortunately, is a character who can be summed up in an entirely dismissive fashion: he talks to fish. Johns decided to ignore all that and instead reveal a side of the character that speaks to his strengths in a far empowering way, as a guy who had an entirely separate group of allies who link his undersea world to surface concerns in ways that are still being explored nearly a year into the series and a rivalry with his archnemesis that has turned decidedly personal. Aquaman has always been portrayed as the victim in his stories (which is really weird), but Johns is turning him into a multifaceted and even culpable figure. Like Wonder Woman, he has always been a character who was supposed to be important just because he supposed to, and during Flashpoint last year their common significance as warriors was made plain. Yet being a warrior isn't enough. But being a tragic hero might be. This is a good issue to see how Johns is accomplishing this.
Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #2 of 4 (DC) What's absolutely fascinating about this issue has a connection to Alan Moore's story that could almost have been entirely forgotten in the midst of hype for being the best superhero story ever told. Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner remind readers of the social significance of it, too, as they outline the insidious plot to turn drugs into the next big consumer hit, a habit that doesn't need to provide anything lasting in order to create its own constant demand. Laurie is just beginning her career as a costumed crimefighter, something she never thought she'd do, but it's another habit, in effect, that she can't overcome. If there's a message, it's that one of these habits is productive and the other isn't.
Cobra #15 (IDW) Longtime fans of G.I. Joe will know that one of the big developments in the late 80s continuity was the revelation that Cobra Commander had a hidden son named Billy. Billy hits Cobra in a big way this issue, only he's not the boy we used to know, but a man, who in the opening pages sounds suspiciously like the Cobra from earlier issues, the ones trying to sell the organization to the public. If he's not evil, then he certainly has an ego, and could have easily been used by his father's allies, possibly without him even realizing it. It's this malleable sense of morality that allows this series to remain so brilliant. You know who the bad guys and the good guys are, but they're both forced to exist in a world where it's not so easy to keep those distinctions separate when something needs to be done. This is not a G.I. Joe book in any traditional sense. You don't even need to care about G.I. Joe to enjoy it, and I'm certain that you don't even have to have read the several other dozen issues behind this one to start enjoying it now.
Justice League #11 (DC) I don't think Graves will go down as one of the most memorable villains in JLA history, and I don't think Geoff Johns thinks so, either. He's a catalyst, a means to an end, to make a point, that this team is not perfect, even though its reputation in the book and as a comics commodity suggests so. Readers from any number of eras will tell you that the Justice League is fallible. The different and the distinction Johns is making here, and certainly in this issue, is that even a membership comprised of its most iconic members has visible chinks in its armor. The underlying story from the beginning of the series has been Wonder Woman's journey, and it's fair to say that Johns has been doing more than other writer of the team to make her relevant. Her relationship with Steve Trevor, which takes a considerable step this issue (but not one you might be thinking of), has been at the center of this significance, but the big splash is her fight with Superman and Green Lantern. It's something of a cliche to try and help out a character's reputation by putting them in a situation like this, but for Wonder Woman, she's rarely had a moment like this. In recent years she's come to be defined more closely as a warrior than ever before, but Johns has managed to channel that into someone who can be irrational and rational at the same time. She can be reasoned with. (It's also amazing that Johns is willing to show Green Lantern as so vulnerable in these pages, considering he's gone a good way into making the character his signature work in comics.) The Shazam backup continues, and can it really been only the fifth installment? Johns and Gary Frank are owning the former Captain Marvel as no one since Jerry Ordway. I don't think he'll be overlooked again anytime soon.
Nightwing #11 (DC) The subplot of Detective Nie that Kyle Higgins has been sowing throughout this run is starting to come to a head. I don't know why Nightwing seems to elicit these kinds of characters (Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson previously worked similarly extended angles), but I'm glad it's another thing that Higgins is most assuredly doing write in this book. There's plenty of story threads to keep reader interested this issue, including a visit from Sonia Branch, the daughter of Tony Zucco (the mobster responsible for the death of Dick Grayson's parents), who turns our hero down for a loan due to the established risk involved; a conversation with Damian, loaded with references to recent comics that also helps Nightwing riddle out some detective work; and the villain Paragon, who's there to exploit as much as possible. Guest artist Andres Guinaldo is hit-and-miss, especially with Dick's hair for some reason, but the coloring makes a good contrast of Nightwing's basic gray and the new red swash. All in all, this is a book that rewards regular readers.
Now here I'm going to talk about some recent new series from cult favorite writers Jonathan Hickman, Brian Wood, and Brian K. Vaughan. Hickman's been famous recently for his work with Marvel, notably Fantastic Four, but he originally made his name on creator-owned titles for Image. Wood is known for Demo and DMZ, while Vaughan is probably the biggest name of the bunch, having crafted Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, two long-running titles that had readers invested in the unusual lives of their central protagonists.
I read these issues last week:
The Manhattan Projects #3 (Image)
from Hickman
The Massive #2 (Dark Horse)
from Wood
Saga #3 (Image)
from Vaughan
Of the three, I'm most impressed by Saga. Hickman is known for having a wild imagination, but cycling it through either historical figures or established characters (sometimes blending the two, as in S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Manhattan Projects is not so different from this mold, even though it seems to have a little more breathing room than usual. As the title implies, it deals with the development of the atomic bomb, and Hickman's idea of the greater things going on around it. He gets to play with Einstein, Roosevelt, and a wacked-out version of Truman (if this is even close to truth, my history teachers have a lot of explaining to do), among others. This particular issue handles the actual deployment of the bomb that resulted, and so it's fun (insofar as that bomb was "fun") to read Hickman's depiction of these events, although there's little indication of what exactly he's doing to build a larger story. Maybe I need to read another issue. The Massive, meanwhile, appears to be part-Wood and equally parts Dark Horse reviving Arvid Nelson's brilliant Zero Killer, but in a decentralized form. For this reason (because I loved Zero Killer), I'm perhaps less inclined to view Massive as a singular creation, even though it's a book (like all three of these titles) that has a considerable amount of buzz around it, mostly because of Wood's involvement. Saga, meanwhile, is something totally new from Vaughan, at least as far as my experience goes. Maybe his Runaways was similar. At any rate, this is a story set on an alien world, and Vaughan has embraced its otherworldliness, almost to a degree that I must ask you to see for yourself. It's like Neil Gaiman doing Pixar (Coraline only gives you so much of a clue). If you ever sampled Grant Morrison and had a hard time figuring him out, Vaughan might have provided an adequate window into that kind of storytelling, like Seaguy but without being a parody of superhero comics. This one demands to be read again.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Fantastic Four #600
writer: Jonathan Hickman
artists: Steve Epting, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ming Doyle, Leinil Francis Yu, Farel Dalrymple
When I make a mistake, I like to think I'm strong enough to admit it. I made a mistake. Hickman did have a vision after all, and it may be one of the biggest and most important in recent comics history. The Fantastic Four have stagnated for...decades(?), are were more or less irrelevant until he decided to let everyone believe that he killed off Johnny Storm (anyone who actually read the issue could tell that he wasn't even killed off in the issue), which got everyone talking about the franchise, allowing him to relaunch it (FF), let it evolve (similarly some of the things Dan Slott did in Amazing Spider-Man over the past year). Reed Richards established the Future Foundation, most notably. Since I haven't read most of the issue between "Three" and #600, I had to gloss over much of the climactic developments in the issue, but could easily appreciate everything Hickman did with Johnny, especially how much space he devoted to that element, so that it didn't come off as cheap or gimmicky. Bottom line, Hickman has finally entered the mainstream, and he's reshaping it in his image. Years from now, these are the Marvel comics everyone will remember.
artists: Steve Epting, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ming Doyle, Leinil Francis Yu, Farel Dalrymple
When I make a mistake, I like to think I'm strong enough to admit it. I made a mistake. Hickman did have a vision after all, and it may be one of the biggest and most important in recent comics history. The Fantastic Four have stagnated for...decades(?), are were more or less irrelevant until he decided to let everyone believe that he killed off Johnny Storm (anyone who actually read the issue could tell that he wasn't even killed off in the issue), which got everyone talking about the franchise, allowing him to relaunch it (FF), let it evolve (similarly some of the things Dan Slott did in Amazing Spider-Man over the past year). Reed Richards established the Future Foundation, most notably. Since I haven't read most of the issue between "Three" and #600, I had to gloss over much of the climactic developments in the issue, but could easily appreciate everything Hickman did with Johnny, especially how much space he devoted to that element, so that it didn't come off as cheap or gimmicky. Bottom line, Hickman has finally entered the mainstream, and he's reshaping it in his image. Years from now, these are the Marvel comics everyone will remember.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Gone in a flash...!
The biggest news for me personally in recent weeks was that Borders, the company I’ve worked for over the past five years, has gone into liquidation. In a matter of months, it’ll have passed into history. There’re any number of things I could say about this, but for the purposes of this particular column, I’ll limit myself to comics experience I was able to enjoy during that time. Perhaps most notably, I found myself increasingly in charge of a small corner of the comics retail experience, quite by accident.
I began working for the company in the fall of 2006, opening a new store in Burlington, MA. At first, I as just another employee, and since this was the first time I had ever worked in a bookstore, it took time for me to establish a role for myself, to become comfortable. Some of my earliest contact with the comics in the store were the regular supply of new issues we received in our magazine shipments. I took care to manage these as best I could, but I also enjoyed reading them on breaks, which was a marvelously unique experience (I can’t imagine the wicked temptation working in an actual comics shop might kindle).
At some point, when it became necessary to reorganize certain areas that had gotten wildly out of order, I realized I could take control of the graphic novel collection, too. I became quite interested in this. I started reading a lot of those, too, some like DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN that I was naturally aware of but had never actually experienced before.
Within about a year, I transferred to a different Borders after moving to Colorado Springs. Things were different here. The graphic novels hadn’t been maintained in any serious manner for some time, and I didn’t feel qualified to correct this right away. In time, however, I had enough support, the right moves were made, and I was finally able to bring them back under control. It was a greater revelation. The new order was perhaps a greater order than I’d accomplished in my other store, and I began to take greater pains to keep it so. I became, essentially, a guardian to the graphic novel collection, sometimes zealously so. The comics kept coming in with magazines, and at some point, I became sole guardian, as it were, of the magazines (somewhat more officially, it should be noted), and so was able to maintain the available issues at my leisure.
Retail can be a funny beast, sometimes completely unaware of the difference between supply and demand. Space was a constant issue, with the graphic novels. I had to innovate in order to find space for all of them. I began appropriating more and more display areas, all around the general area where comics were ordinarily be found. I became a fanatic. I didn’t exactly foster readers, but I at least made it easy for anyone to know what I thought might be worth checking out. It was fun. The displays continued to grow, and it became somewhat ridiculous (within reason). I had virtually turned a whole section of the bookstore into a comics shop. (If only I had real power! Or loyal customers!)
Anyway, then Borders went into bankruptcy, and for some reason or another couldn’t avoid liquidation. So there ends that.
Earlier this year, I had a fortuitously-timed employee appreciation discount when THE FLASH OMNIBUS BY GEOFF JOHNS VOLUME ONE was released. You may know this particular ditty comes at a fairly hefty price, oversized hardcover that it is, collecting more than a dozen comics. The period of 2000-2001, as readers of this blog may remember, was notable in my comics experience in that I was not, as such, reading comics, so Geoff’s run came at a time when I couldn’t really appreciate it. I was still high on all the work Mark Waid had done (even though his last story, involving Cobalt Blue in “Chain Lightning,” seemed to fall on deaf ears), and couldn’t imagine anyone else capturing the world of the Scarlet Speedster quite so vividly. I kept track of comics during my time away, though, and heard all these amazing things about what Johns was doing, and in 2004, when I was segueing back in, his FLASH comics were among the first things I read, even though I didn’t make an effort to be very expansive about it. Even by 2005, when I was officially back, I didn’t seem all that interested in following his efforts too closely.
Let me just step aside for a moment and note for the record that Geoff worked on THE FLASH for five years. This is incredibly unusual. Waid had about six years of interrupted time (by Mark Millar and Grant Morrison) on the title, and worked in conjunction with Brian Augustyn for some of that. Unlike his work on JSA, which he spent shared some of the work with James Robinson, Johns wrote THE FLASH on his own. It was his first big assignment after STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E., the book that ushered Geoff’s comics career.
He’s been writing Green Lantern since 2005, and has so thoroughly revolutionized that character and the franchise around him that Hollywood finally took the gamble that a wide audience might actually be out there for a property even comics fans have only moderately cared about (for the most part). Geoff’s work in this regard is exactly comparable to what Mark Waid did with The Flash.
So what exactly did Johns did with the same character? THE FLASH OMNIBUS is a clear indication that he had no intention of replicating Waid’s work. He de-emphasized the mythology of the Speed Force and Wally West’s considerable family of speedsters (though in Geoff’s own TEEN TITANS reboot Bart Allen receives a remarkable upgrade that no other writer has been able to capitalize on, with the possible exception of Marc Guggenheim), and instead found a way to represent the reality of life for someone whose main attribute is the ability to run really fast. In effect, now that Waid had matured Wally, Geoff was able to push him into his own confident adventures.
In another departure from Waid’s impulses, Johns chose to bring villains squarely back into the fold, new ones, figures who were familiar from stories that predated Waid in the same series, but most notably the Rogues, characters who had been famous foes of Barry Allen, the second Flash, but who had basically remained dormant for decades. Geoff infused Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, and others with a considerable of amount of depth that exploded their possibilities, something clear from the very beginning, though he himself wouldn’t fully realize the potential of all this for a few years. For an outsider, it seemed like he was losing himself in everything but his main character. In reality, Geoff understood better than anyone the potential of what he was writing.
A lot of commentators like to say that he prefers to resurrect old ideas at the expense of newer ones, that he’s guilty of submerging the future of comics in a fanboy’s fantasy that forever chains it to the past, limiting the potential for new readers. He brings back Barry Allen after a few decades, reversing one of comics’ seemingly permanent and perfect deaths, and forgets completely about Wally. Where’s the sense in that? The fact is (the Flash Fact), Geoff understands Barry as a character, and has done more with a few stories than most writers working for years will ever accomplish with other characters, realizing the heart of their potential. He found a narrative, a singular voice, for Barry, that had been overlooked before, wasn’t even possible given the style of storytelling when Barry was last in action. If you’ve got that, why worry about anything else?
As I attempted to do, prematurely, a few months back, I bought some comics from Borders, from the last rounds that will ever be delivered, and so will round out this week with my thoughts on those:
THE FLASH #12 (DC)
Cover date July 2011.
Somewhat appropriately enough, the final issue of the current FLASH series, with Johns at the helm, leading directly into FLASHPOINT, the first time the franchise has carried a major crossover event. With details having emerged about the “New 52,” we now know that Geoff has technically ended his run with The Flash, once again, at least for now, which is something of a disappointment, but it can’t be said that he hasn’t devoted a significant amount of his career with one Scarlet Speedster or another. I spent five years working for Borders, and Geoff spent five years writing Wally West. I know how that time passed for me. I can only imagine what it’s like to write a single series for that length of time.
GREEN LANTERN #66 (DC)
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #60 (DC)
Cover date July 2011.
I made a conscious effort to refrain from reading or collecting any of the “War of the Green Lanterns” comics in recent months, knowing that if I read any of them, I will probably want to read all of them, and since I’m “not” reading comics these days, I wanted to wait until the eventual collection to read this latest epic. Well, this was a good enough excuse to break that rule. As far as I can tell, it’s a more than appropriate arc to finish on (at least to the “New 52” fresh start), and works extremely well with GREEN LANTERN AND PHILOSOPHY, a book that was released in conjunction with the new movie, and which deals at some length with the work Geoff has been doing in developing the core concepts of the franchise.
BATMAN #711 (DC)
Cover date August 2011.
I’ve heard some people refer to Tony Daniel as a hack writer. Those who have been following this blog know that I think otherwise. I’m extremely glad that he’ll have the chance to continuing creating Batman stories in DETECTIVE COMICS come September. He has all the potential to succeed Grant Morrison as the next architect of the Dark Knight.
TEEN TITANS #91 (DC)
Cover date March 2011.
Okay, so I didn’t always notice when a series stopped shipping. Toward the end, we received fewer and fewer new comics. I liked to maintain as full a rack as possible, and so that’s why this book stuck around for so long. Which is just as well, because it becomes my only real experience with J.T. Krul’s Titans, which famously integrated Damian as a member. A fairly decent experience, overall, but not really on par with Geoff’s, or Marv Wolfman’s. There is, however, a nice moment where Bart Allen remembers the death Marc Guggenheim was editorially directed to end his run with, which is a nice touch, given what I’ve written earlier.
SPIDER-GIRL #4 (Marvel)
From April 2011.
Along with “One Moment in Time,” “Grim Hunt” was an excellent representation of a mature Spider-Man, so I kept this particular comic around since it was basically a follow-up I kept hoping customers would snatch up. They never did, obviously, but that just allowed me to, finally.
FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LAST STAND (Marvel)
This one was only shipped a few weeks back, and is a repackaging of #s 574 and 587-588 of the series recently replaced by FF, including the famous conclusion to “Three,” and therefore the infamous death of Johnny Storm. I wrote about that particular issue a few months back, and my opinion of its individual worth remains basically the same (the lack of emphasis on Johnny is baffling, except to say that his death was somehow a completely natural outcome of the story, at least in Jonathan Hickman’s eyes). The difference is that this special edition puts the whole thing into a far better context. The Fantastic Four were always something of a Marvel indulgence, a willingness to believe that it somehow made sense that these four characters really did make sense as superheroes, and not just as a makeshift family. Reed Richards, even in the movies, is portrayed as a little too singularly motivated by his pursuit of science for this to completely jive, so the forging of the Future Foundation and a complete break with its origins is actually something of a genius move on the part of Hickman. If other writers actually maintain and expand on the idea, it might even make sense! So I was glad to have had the opportunity to buy this one, certainly.
The fate of Borders, in the end, simply adds a new wrinkle into the continuing evolution of my comics experience. But things are always changing…
I began working for the company in the fall of 2006, opening a new store in Burlington, MA. At first, I as just another employee, and since this was the first time I had ever worked in a bookstore, it took time for me to establish a role for myself, to become comfortable. Some of my earliest contact with the comics in the store were the regular supply of new issues we received in our magazine shipments. I took care to manage these as best I could, but I also enjoyed reading them on breaks, which was a marvelously unique experience (I can’t imagine the wicked temptation working in an actual comics shop might kindle).
At some point, when it became necessary to reorganize certain areas that had gotten wildly out of order, I realized I could take control of the graphic novel collection, too. I became quite interested in this. I started reading a lot of those, too, some like DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN that I was naturally aware of but had never actually experienced before.
Within about a year, I transferred to a different Borders after moving to Colorado Springs. Things were different here. The graphic novels hadn’t been maintained in any serious manner for some time, and I didn’t feel qualified to correct this right away. In time, however, I had enough support, the right moves were made, and I was finally able to bring them back under control. It was a greater revelation. The new order was perhaps a greater order than I’d accomplished in my other store, and I began to take greater pains to keep it so. I became, essentially, a guardian to the graphic novel collection, sometimes zealously so. The comics kept coming in with magazines, and at some point, I became sole guardian, as it were, of the magazines (somewhat more officially, it should be noted), and so was able to maintain the available issues at my leisure.
Retail can be a funny beast, sometimes completely unaware of the difference between supply and demand. Space was a constant issue, with the graphic novels. I had to innovate in order to find space for all of them. I began appropriating more and more display areas, all around the general area where comics were ordinarily be found. I became a fanatic. I didn’t exactly foster readers, but I at least made it easy for anyone to know what I thought might be worth checking out. It was fun. The displays continued to grow, and it became somewhat ridiculous (within reason). I had virtually turned a whole section of the bookstore into a comics shop. (If only I had real power! Or loyal customers!)
Anyway, then Borders went into bankruptcy, and for some reason or another couldn’t avoid liquidation. So there ends that.
Earlier this year, I had a fortuitously-timed employee appreciation discount when THE FLASH OMNIBUS BY GEOFF JOHNS VOLUME ONE was released. You may know this particular ditty comes at a fairly hefty price, oversized hardcover that it is, collecting more than a dozen comics. The period of 2000-2001, as readers of this blog may remember, was notable in my comics experience in that I was not, as such, reading comics, so Geoff’s run came at a time when I couldn’t really appreciate it. I was still high on all the work Mark Waid had done (even though his last story, involving Cobalt Blue in “Chain Lightning,” seemed to fall on deaf ears), and couldn’t imagine anyone else capturing the world of the Scarlet Speedster quite so vividly. I kept track of comics during my time away, though, and heard all these amazing things about what Johns was doing, and in 2004, when I was segueing back in, his FLASH comics were among the first things I read, even though I didn’t make an effort to be very expansive about it. Even by 2005, when I was officially back, I didn’t seem all that interested in following his efforts too closely.
Let me just step aside for a moment and note for the record that Geoff worked on THE FLASH for five years. This is incredibly unusual. Waid had about six years of interrupted time (by Mark Millar and Grant Morrison) on the title, and worked in conjunction with Brian Augustyn for some of that. Unlike his work on JSA, which he spent shared some of the work with James Robinson, Johns wrote THE FLASH on his own. It was his first big assignment after STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E., the book that ushered Geoff’s comics career.
He’s been writing Green Lantern since 2005, and has so thoroughly revolutionized that character and the franchise around him that Hollywood finally took the gamble that a wide audience might actually be out there for a property even comics fans have only moderately cared about (for the most part). Geoff’s work in this regard is exactly comparable to what Mark Waid did with The Flash.
So what exactly did Johns did with the same character? THE FLASH OMNIBUS is a clear indication that he had no intention of replicating Waid’s work. He de-emphasized the mythology of the Speed Force and Wally West’s considerable family of speedsters (though in Geoff’s own TEEN TITANS reboot Bart Allen receives a remarkable upgrade that no other writer has been able to capitalize on, with the possible exception of Marc Guggenheim), and instead found a way to represent the reality of life for someone whose main attribute is the ability to run really fast. In effect, now that Waid had matured Wally, Geoff was able to push him into his own confident adventures.
In another departure from Waid’s impulses, Johns chose to bring villains squarely back into the fold, new ones, figures who were familiar from stories that predated Waid in the same series, but most notably the Rogues, characters who had been famous foes of Barry Allen, the second Flash, but who had basically remained dormant for decades. Geoff infused Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, and others with a considerable of amount of depth that exploded their possibilities, something clear from the very beginning, though he himself wouldn’t fully realize the potential of all this for a few years. For an outsider, it seemed like he was losing himself in everything but his main character. In reality, Geoff understood better than anyone the potential of what he was writing.
A lot of commentators like to say that he prefers to resurrect old ideas at the expense of newer ones, that he’s guilty of submerging the future of comics in a fanboy’s fantasy that forever chains it to the past, limiting the potential for new readers. He brings back Barry Allen after a few decades, reversing one of comics’ seemingly permanent and perfect deaths, and forgets completely about Wally. Where’s the sense in that? The fact is (the Flash Fact), Geoff understands Barry as a character, and has done more with a few stories than most writers working for years will ever accomplish with other characters, realizing the heart of their potential. He found a narrative, a singular voice, for Barry, that had been overlooked before, wasn’t even possible given the style of storytelling when Barry was last in action. If you’ve got that, why worry about anything else?
As I attempted to do, prematurely, a few months back, I bought some comics from Borders, from the last rounds that will ever be delivered, and so will round out this week with my thoughts on those:
THE FLASH #12 (DC)
Cover date July 2011.
Somewhat appropriately enough, the final issue of the current FLASH series, with Johns at the helm, leading directly into FLASHPOINT, the first time the franchise has carried a major crossover event. With details having emerged about the “New 52,” we now know that Geoff has technically ended his run with The Flash, once again, at least for now, which is something of a disappointment, but it can’t be said that he hasn’t devoted a significant amount of his career with one Scarlet Speedster or another. I spent five years working for Borders, and Geoff spent five years writing Wally West. I know how that time passed for me. I can only imagine what it’s like to write a single series for that length of time.
GREEN LANTERN #66 (DC)
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #60 (DC)
Cover date July 2011.
I made a conscious effort to refrain from reading or collecting any of the “War of the Green Lanterns” comics in recent months, knowing that if I read any of them, I will probably want to read all of them, and since I’m “not” reading comics these days, I wanted to wait until the eventual collection to read this latest epic. Well, this was a good enough excuse to break that rule. As far as I can tell, it’s a more than appropriate arc to finish on (at least to the “New 52” fresh start), and works extremely well with GREEN LANTERN AND PHILOSOPHY, a book that was released in conjunction with the new movie, and which deals at some length with the work Geoff has been doing in developing the core concepts of the franchise.
BATMAN #711 (DC)
Cover date August 2011.
I’ve heard some people refer to Tony Daniel as a hack writer. Those who have been following this blog know that I think otherwise. I’m extremely glad that he’ll have the chance to continuing creating Batman stories in DETECTIVE COMICS come September. He has all the potential to succeed Grant Morrison as the next architect of the Dark Knight.
TEEN TITANS #91 (DC)
Cover date March 2011.
Okay, so I didn’t always notice when a series stopped shipping. Toward the end, we received fewer and fewer new comics. I liked to maintain as full a rack as possible, and so that’s why this book stuck around for so long. Which is just as well, because it becomes my only real experience with J.T. Krul’s Titans, which famously integrated Damian as a member. A fairly decent experience, overall, but not really on par with Geoff’s, or Marv Wolfman’s. There is, however, a nice moment where Bart Allen remembers the death Marc Guggenheim was editorially directed to end his run with, which is a nice touch, given what I’ve written earlier.
SPIDER-GIRL #4 (Marvel)
From April 2011.
Along with “One Moment in Time,” “Grim Hunt” was an excellent representation of a mature Spider-Man, so I kept this particular comic around since it was basically a follow-up I kept hoping customers would snatch up. They never did, obviously, but that just allowed me to, finally.
FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LAST STAND (Marvel)
This one was only shipped a few weeks back, and is a repackaging of #s 574 and 587-588 of the series recently replaced by FF, including the famous conclusion to “Three,” and therefore the infamous death of Johnny Storm. I wrote about that particular issue a few months back, and my opinion of its individual worth remains basically the same (the lack of emphasis on Johnny is baffling, except to say that his death was somehow a completely natural outcome of the story, at least in Jonathan Hickman’s eyes). The difference is that this special edition puts the whole thing into a far better context. The Fantastic Four were always something of a Marvel indulgence, a willingness to believe that it somehow made sense that these four characters really did make sense as superheroes, and not just as a makeshift family. Reed Richards, even in the movies, is portrayed as a little too singularly motivated by his pursuit of science for this to completely jive, so the forging of the Future Foundation and a complete break with its origins is actually something of a genius move on the part of Hickman. If other writers actually maintain and expand on the idea, it might even make sense! So I was glad to have had the opportunity to buy this one, certainly.
The fate of Borders, in the end, simply adds a new wrinkle into the continuing evolution of my comics experience. But things are always changing…
Thursday, March 3, 2011
"Three"
It seems to me that comic book fans themselves are as much invested in burying their chosen medium as anyone else. Without even realizing it, they treat it as it were just as ephemeral and a waste of time as the people who actively view it as juvenile nonsense.
Before you wonder what the heck I’m smoking, let me explain a little more: Comics fans are the first ones the jump on any hot new thing, and they’ll follow a favorite series or company religiously. They’re also the first (and presumably only ones) to vehemently attack and deride a project or creator. Now, I’ve encountered that same kind of reaction in television opinions and pro wrestling (so presumably I’m talking about a far wider phenomenon, but for argument’s sake I’ll stick only with comics today). What interests me is that those same fans will lionize the most popular and established stories (or, again, demonize them), create and perpetuate the myths that support their current opinions, and every new comic is another opportunity to reiterate what they’ve already said. The result is that new releases and trade and/or hardcover collections get a fair bit of publicity. What falls in between is any talk on something that no longer seems relevant, that is either too old (which can mean that it was released last month) or was never collected.
Most of what I’ve been and will continue to talk about on this blog is exactly that kind of material. I realize you can find people talking about this kind of stuff elsewhere, but mostly it’s either nostalgic or facetious, and is completely irrelevant to the continuing interests of a comics fan, a comics reader, appealing more to the archivist or researcher. Yes, you can find a lot of material on something that’s just come out, or some opinions on something that has been deemed a classic, but how often do you hear about the rest of it? Are comics really that disposable? That’s what you might assume.
I begin this column with such thoughts because I am only now going to write about the death of Johnny Storm, hence the title at the top of the page, from FANTASTIC FOUR #587. For most fans, it’s such old news, they had to release the issue a day early just to try and keep on top of the story, and so old a topic that writing about it now seems completely irrelevant. Most fans already decided the only real reaction was simply to say, “Well, he’s just going to come back anyway, so what’s the point?”
That’s as much my point as anything else, too, but here’s why: Does reading the issue now, does the idea of the story, of the death of Johnny Storm, truly hold up? Some of this would seem to be histrionics on my part, trying to make a point out of thin air, but while some readers are advancing to the next issue, the next development, I’m in the unique position of being that reader who isn’t, who has in fact disconnected himself from the comics stream, and who therefore has the luxury of asking the questions that seem beyond the point, but bring up another point entirely. How to make what even comics fans consider to be an instantly disposable event into something worth talking about, how to write about comics that don’t seem to matter, as if they’re still worth talking about.
For starters, let’s rewind a little. Jonathan Hickman is the writer responsible for all of this. He first came to my attention, as he did with many others, while he was working for Image, when he was doing some of the most innovative and thought-provoking work in comics, a revolutionary at a time when it seemed safer to try and reemphasize the things that had worked in the past. When Marvel hired him, it seemed like a natural for the House of Ideas. He was quickly placed into projects that would capture his perspective in a more traditional context, but as he himself seemed to realize, the Fantastic Four were an inevitability. Most writers seemed to write them only as cosmic adventurers, or as a family unit that ahd become a cornerstone of the company, but rarely with anything truly challenging in mind (heh).
What Hickman represented was a chance to bring the team back to its roots, as an agent of the science games that gave Marvel almost every one of its famous superheroes (something that many writers had been doing with Iron Man over the years, but notably Orson Scott Card and Matt Fraction in the recent past, and Dan Slott recently with Spider-man). Like Fraction, he seemed to embrace the concept on a wide scale, but he was driving, inevitably, toward something much greater, something other writers had attempted before him, driving the story of the comic directly behind the characters themselves, and in the most dramatic way possible, by killing one of them off. You can’t come up with any more immediately iconic name for a Fantastic Four story than “Three.” Everyone knew exactly what he was aiming for the minute he started it.
Those who read Hickman’s run regularly say he teased every one of the team’s members as a possible victim, from Mr. Fantastic (whom I’d pegged, owing to the generation-spanning adventure I’d earlier sampled) to Invisible Woman (Sue Storm, wife of Reed Richards and sister of Johnny) to The Thing (who’d long ago become the most iconic member, even though it didn’t really come off that way in the movies). As Hickman himself explained, however, the only really logical choice was the Human Torch, who in addition to having personal connections with every other member as none of the others did, was also the only one created from the image and likeness of an existing Marvel property. Quite simply, Johnny was a victim of opportunity all the way around.
Of course, this is not to say we won’t see him again, and it seems likely and yes, inevitable, because this is comics we’re talking about. I’m not saying that with the same bitterness many seem to regard the phenomenon. If you’ve got good stories to tell, you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way, because hey, it’s only fiction. Even Sherlock Holmes proved too popular to kill off, and writers throughout the centuries have found it remarkably easy to revisit characters like Hercules and King Arthur, who did, in fact, die at the end of their original adventures.
The question, then, isn’t really whether or not Johnny Storm or any other member should have died, but whether or not it was worth reading for readers who hadn’t, in the common sense, been reading regularly, whether the issue was worth it for them then, or even now. If we were to treat FANTASTIC FOUR #587 as we would a book or a movie anyone could track down with very little effort, how would it fare? This is the back issue treatment, in essence. We’re not even talking about collections, of which there will inevitably be for “Three,” whether or not it stays in print past its original release. (Comics fans have an even more difficult time than Disney fans in keeping things out of some metaphorical vault.)
If fans were to treat individual issues the way they treat favorite storylines, the way trade and/or hardcovers collections are treated (as long as they’re in print), not just as fodder/filler for a box in someone’s home or store, not just in valuing a first appearance or random variant cover, what would be the value of this particular story?
The way I read it, most of the issue is a complete wash, a random adventure that’s impenetrable to anyone who hadn’t read the rest of the storyline, and doesn’t seem to foreshadow in the least bit Johnny’s death. Hickman seems to have borrowed, at least in spirit, Spock’s death from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, a happenstance that appears to be the only way for the heroes to escape certain doom, with the sacrifice of one of their own. The actual moments of Johnny’s decision, how the issue closes, is absolutely worth the hype, something that would stand up no matter who the character is, whatever the scenario or medium. Hickman handles that like a pro.
The problem is, I don’t end up feeling that Hickman himself really needed to have written it. I don’t see even a trace of the Hickman I knew from Image, in any of his Marvel work. I see a certain logical connection to the titles he’s worked on, but not the material. As a representative work for a particular creator, I wouldn’t much see the point of having this in my portfolio. The way Grant Morrison kept working toward at and with his grand vision of Batman’s fall and return justified every bit of the hype that continues to surround his efforts. Even Ed Brubaker continues to have some kind of logic surrounding his work with Captain America (though I would argue, he writes a far better James Barnes than Steve Rogers). What can you say about Jonathan Hickman and the Fantastic Four? Maybe the regular readers will know, but the only time anyone wrote about Hickman’s run was “Three.”
Maybe the problem is a conceptual one. Maybe the Fantastic Four really don’t work on both levels, both the cosmic and the personal, as many fans and creators, including Hickman, seem to think. Maybe it’s simply a problem on my end. I’ve never, except during Civil War, read FANTASTIC FOUR regularly. I’m not sure any creator after the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (whose appeal was immediately evident to me when the infamous “lost” issue was finally printed a few years back) has truly understood the appeal and potential in these characters. Except for the wedding between the parent figures, they’ve been hurt more than any of superheroes by the static nature of even Marvel properties, which routinely attempt to demonstrate the worth of a continuing and all-encompassing history (well, when it’s convenient). Hickman did recognize that a change had to happen, and he went for the obvious one, and in the middle of a big cosmic adventure, so he appealed to all the right things.
But it seemed like a last-ditch effort, rather than a concerted one. Unlike Brubaker, who had the benefit of a relaunch to fit all his ideas into a coherent whole, or Morrison, who employed an entire tapestry, as far as I know, Hickman seems content to let everything fall on that one moment, one “Three” and the death of Johnny Storm, and let a relaunch and general ramifications take over.
But I suppose that’s a problem for other readers. It was definitely worth talking about, and that’s exactly my point, when it was published and even now, and should be as relevant now as it was then, not just for what it caused and symbolized, but what the comic itself was and now stands to be forever, a single issue in a flood of single issues, but a notable, noteworthy, newsworthy, item.
I was last inside a comic book store a month ago. It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago, but sobriety is one step at a time, so one month is a long time for me. That’s also the last time I received a shipment from Midtown, which technically the method by which I was reading the majority of my comics in recent years. To have cut those subscription ties and to have stayed away from a comic book store and for only a month to have passed…Sometimes it seems like an eternity has passed by, sometimes like it’s silly to be feeling in the least bit nostalgic. I’ve heard about an issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that made me want to head down to Escape Velocity, or place an order for it, one of those landmark events that seems like it should be in everyone’s collection. So far, I’ve contented myself with knowing that Slott is doing the kind of material I knew he could. I’ve got the few comics I can read and/or buy at work, at the bookstore, including the first appearance of Flash Thompson as the new Venom, plus the big reveal of Hot Pursuit as some kind of alternate Barry Allen.
…Anyway, the rest of this column represents the last batch of new comics from the era that has now slipped, however tenuously, into history, the shipment that included FANTASTIC FOUR #587. Here’s what else I read:
WONDER WOMAN #606 (DC)
When I heard that Phil Hester had picked up the baton from J. Michael Straczynski on this book, I couldn’t help but think that business was about to pick up. But aside from a new zestiness that reminded me of all the character Greg Rucka brought to Wonder Woman’s world, the story still meanders on the same Straczynski path, which is the only disappointment possible, given that I still expect Hester to rock this book, once he’s free to explore his own ideas. Because there really is a new spark evident.
SHAZAM! #1 (DC)
Eric Wallace, one of the slightly more anonymous regular presences at DC, provides this continuation of the Marvel family saga, which the company only seems halfhearted about, despite some excellent work that’s occurred in recent years, highlighted by THE TRIALS OF SHAZAM! But among the first new letters DC has printed in about a decade, someone does add their voice to this very frustration. Maybe they’re hinting at something?
GREEN ARROW #8 (DC)
J.T. Krul continues a run that apparently isn’t getting a lot of appreciation from the fans, even though, as far as I can tell, if it didn’t start out awesome, has only gotten better with time. This issue spends a lot of time exploring the Galahad character, one of the more intriguing additions to Green Arrow lore, and a terrific piece of the current mythos, in that forest of his.
DETECTIVE COMICS #873 (DC)
Scott Snyder’s third issue wraps up his first arc, and makes a few more haunting suggestions about how he plans to approach Dick Grayson. If he digs much deeper, this will truly be a remarkable run, for both creator and character.
BLOCKBUSTERS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (Marvel)
Okay, so maybe it’s just me, but rather than being so encyclopedically thorough with these things, couldn’t Marvel be a little more reader-friendly? I’m not suggesting turning them into fluff, but there has to be a way to make it a little more…fun? Archives don’t make for casual reading, and when you release it in this format…fun should sort of be the mandate. Just saying…
ACTION COMICS #897 (DC)
Due to a shipping snafu, my store got double the number of this issue, which would be amusing if we sold this title half as well as we do BATMAN. In fact, if we sold any copies at all. We sell out of BATMAN, by the way, all two copies, every time. Anyway, Paul Cornell continues his tour with Lex Luthor, this time allowing The Joker to drop in for some fun. I think I would have more thoroughly enjoyed these stories if Cornell hadn’t believed he needed the gimmick of a guest star every issue. Or maybe it was a mandate he had to accept. Still, we do get another Larfleeze comic out of it!
That’s it, then (and pretty literally at that, pretty much). I’ll be moving into some interesting new topics in the coming weeks, so there’s definitely plenty of reasons to keep tuning in. The red phone is always open to calls, too!
Before you wonder what the heck I’m smoking, let me explain a little more: Comics fans are the first ones the jump on any hot new thing, and they’ll follow a favorite series or company religiously. They’re also the first (and presumably only ones) to vehemently attack and deride a project or creator. Now, I’ve encountered that same kind of reaction in television opinions and pro wrestling (so presumably I’m talking about a far wider phenomenon, but for argument’s sake I’ll stick only with comics today). What interests me is that those same fans will lionize the most popular and established stories (or, again, demonize them), create and perpetuate the myths that support their current opinions, and every new comic is another opportunity to reiterate what they’ve already said. The result is that new releases and trade and/or hardcover collections get a fair bit of publicity. What falls in between is any talk on something that no longer seems relevant, that is either too old (which can mean that it was released last month) or was never collected.
Most of what I’ve been and will continue to talk about on this blog is exactly that kind of material. I realize you can find people talking about this kind of stuff elsewhere, but mostly it’s either nostalgic or facetious, and is completely irrelevant to the continuing interests of a comics fan, a comics reader, appealing more to the archivist or researcher. Yes, you can find a lot of material on something that’s just come out, or some opinions on something that has been deemed a classic, but how often do you hear about the rest of it? Are comics really that disposable? That’s what you might assume.
I begin this column with such thoughts because I am only now going to write about the death of Johnny Storm, hence the title at the top of the page, from FANTASTIC FOUR #587. For most fans, it’s such old news, they had to release the issue a day early just to try and keep on top of the story, and so old a topic that writing about it now seems completely irrelevant. Most fans already decided the only real reaction was simply to say, “Well, he’s just going to come back anyway, so what’s the point?”
That’s as much my point as anything else, too, but here’s why: Does reading the issue now, does the idea of the story, of the death of Johnny Storm, truly hold up? Some of this would seem to be histrionics on my part, trying to make a point out of thin air, but while some readers are advancing to the next issue, the next development, I’m in the unique position of being that reader who isn’t, who has in fact disconnected himself from the comics stream, and who therefore has the luxury of asking the questions that seem beyond the point, but bring up another point entirely. How to make what even comics fans consider to be an instantly disposable event into something worth talking about, how to write about comics that don’t seem to matter, as if they’re still worth talking about.
For starters, let’s rewind a little. Jonathan Hickman is the writer responsible for all of this. He first came to my attention, as he did with many others, while he was working for Image, when he was doing some of the most innovative and thought-provoking work in comics, a revolutionary at a time when it seemed safer to try and reemphasize the things that had worked in the past. When Marvel hired him, it seemed like a natural for the House of Ideas. He was quickly placed into projects that would capture his perspective in a more traditional context, but as he himself seemed to realize, the Fantastic Four were an inevitability. Most writers seemed to write them only as cosmic adventurers, or as a family unit that ahd become a cornerstone of the company, but rarely with anything truly challenging in mind (heh).
What Hickman represented was a chance to bring the team back to its roots, as an agent of the science games that gave Marvel almost every one of its famous superheroes (something that many writers had been doing with Iron Man over the years, but notably Orson Scott Card and Matt Fraction in the recent past, and Dan Slott recently with Spider-man). Like Fraction, he seemed to embrace the concept on a wide scale, but he was driving, inevitably, toward something much greater, something other writers had attempted before him, driving the story of the comic directly behind the characters themselves, and in the most dramatic way possible, by killing one of them off. You can’t come up with any more immediately iconic name for a Fantastic Four story than “Three.” Everyone knew exactly what he was aiming for the minute he started it.
Those who read Hickman’s run regularly say he teased every one of the team’s members as a possible victim, from Mr. Fantastic (whom I’d pegged, owing to the generation-spanning adventure I’d earlier sampled) to Invisible Woman (Sue Storm, wife of Reed Richards and sister of Johnny) to The Thing (who’d long ago become the most iconic member, even though it didn’t really come off that way in the movies). As Hickman himself explained, however, the only really logical choice was the Human Torch, who in addition to having personal connections with every other member as none of the others did, was also the only one created from the image and likeness of an existing Marvel property. Quite simply, Johnny was a victim of opportunity all the way around.
Of course, this is not to say we won’t see him again, and it seems likely and yes, inevitable, because this is comics we’re talking about. I’m not saying that with the same bitterness many seem to regard the phenomenon. If you’ve got good stories to tell, you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way, because hey, it’s only fiction. Even Sherlock Holmes proved too popular to kill off, and writers throughout the centuries have found it remarkably easy to revisit characters like Hercules and King Arthur, who did, in fact, die at the end of their original adventures.
The question, then, isn’t really whether or not Johnny Storm or any other member should have died, but whether or not it was worth reading for readers who hadn’t, in the common sense, been reading regularly, whether the issue was worth it for them then, or even now. If we were to treat FANTASTIC FOUR #587 as we would a book or a movie anyone could track down with very little effort, how would it fare? This is the back issue treatment, in essence. We’re not even talking about collections, of which there will inevitably be for “Three,” whether or not it stays in print past its original release. (Comics fans have an even more difficult time than Disney fans in keeping things out of some metaphorical vault.)
If fans were to treat individual issues the way they treat favorite storylines, the way trade and/or hardcovers collections are treated (as long as they’re in print), not just as fodder/filler for a box in someone’s home or store, not just in valuing a first appearance or random variant cover, what would be the value of this particular story?
The way I read it, most of the issue is a complete wash, a random adventure that’s impenetrable to anyone who hadn’t read the rest of the storyline, and doesn’t seem to foreshadow in the least bit Johnny’s death. Hickman seems to have borrowed, at least in spirit, Spock’s death from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, a happenstance that appears to be the only way for the heroes to escape certain doom, with the sacrifice of one of their own. The actual moments of Johnny’s decision, how the issue closes, is absolutely worth the hype, something that would stand up no matter who the character is, whatever the scenario or medium. Hickman handles that like a pro.
The problem is, I don’t end up feeling that Hickman himself really needed to have written it. I don’t see even a trace of the Hickman I knew from Image, in any of his Marvel work. I see a certain logical connection to the titles he’s worked on, but not the material. As a representative work for a particular creator, I wouldn’t much see the point of having this in my portfolio. The way Grant Morrison kept working toward at and with his grand vision of Batman’s fall and return justified every bit of the hype that continues to surround his efforts. Even Ed Brubaker continues to have some kind of logic surrounding his work with Captain America (though I would argue, he writes a far better James Barnes than Steve Rogers). What can you say about Jonathan Hickman and the Fantastic Four? Maybe the regular readers will know, but the only time anyone wrote about Hickman’s run was “Three.”
Maybe the problem is a conceptual one. Maybe the Fantastic Four really don’t work on both levels, both the cosmic and the personal, as many fans and creators, including Hickman, seem to think. Maybe it’s simply a problem on my end. I’ve never, except during Civil War, read FANTASTIC FOUR regularly. I’m not sure any creator after the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (whose appeal was immediately evident to me when the infamous “lost” issue was finally printed a few years back) has truly understood the appeal and potential in these characters. Except for the wedding between the parent figures, they’ve been hurt more than any of superheroes by the static nature of even Marvel properties, which routinely attempt to demonstrate the worth of a continuing and all-encompassing history (well, when it’s convenient). Hickman did recognize that a change had to happen, and he went for the obvious one, and in the middle of a big cosmic adventure, so he appealed to all the right things.
But it seemed like a last-ditch effort, rather than a concerted one. Unlike Brubaker, who had the benefit of a relaunch to fit all his ideas into a coherent whole, or Morrison, who employed an entire tapestry, as far as I know, Hickman seems content to let everything fall on that one moment, one “Three” and the death of Johnny Storm, and let a relaunch and general ramifications take over.
But I suppose that’s a problem for other readers. It was definitely worth talking about, and that’s exactly my point, when it was published and even now, and should be as relevant now as it was then, not just for what it caused and symbolized, but what the comic itself was and now stands to be forever, a single issue in a flood of single issues, but a notable, noteworthy, newsworthy, item.
I was last inside a comic book store a month ago. It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago, but sobriety is one step at a time, so one month is a long time for me. That’s also the last time I received a shipment from Midtown, which technically the method by which I was reading the majority of my comics in recent years. To have cut those subscription ties and to have stayed away from a comic book store and for only a month to have passed…Sometimes it seems like an eternity has passed by, sometimes like it’s silly to be feeling in the least bit nostalgic. I’ve heard about an issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that made me want to head down to Escape Velocity, or place an order for it, one of those landmark events that seems like it should be in everyone’s collection. So far, I’ve contented myself with knowing that Slott is doing the kind of material I knew he could. I’ve got the few comics I can read and/or buy at work, at the bookstore, including the first appearance of Flash Thompson as the new Venom, plus the big reveal of Hot Pursuit as some kind of alternate Barry Allen.
…Anyway, the rest of this column represents the last batch of new comics from the era that has now slipped, however tenuously, into history, the shipment that included FANTASTIC FOUR #587. Here’s what else I read:
WONDER WOMAN #606 (DC)
When I heard that Phil Hester had picked up the baton from J. Michael Straczynski on this book, I couldn’t help but think that business was about to pick up. But aside from a new zestiness that reminded me of all the character Greg Rucka brought to Wonder Woman’s world, the story still meanders on the same Straczynski path, which is the only disappointment possible, given that I still expect Hester to rock this book, once he’s free to explore his own ideas. Because there really is a new spark evident.
SHAZAM! #1 (DC)
Eric Wallace, one of the slightly more anonymous regular presences at DC, provides this continuation of the Marvel family saga, which the company only seems halfhearted about, despite some excellent work that’s occurred in recent years, highlighted by THE TRIALS OF SHAZAM! But among the first new letters DC has printed in about a decade, someone does add their voice to this very frustration. Maybe they’re hinting at something?
GREEN ARROW #8 (DC)
J.T. Krul continues a run that apparently isn’t getting a lot of appreciation from the fans, even though, as far as I can tell, if it didn’t start out awesome, has only gotten better with time. This issue spends a lot of time exploring the Galahad character, one of the more intriguing additions to Green Arrow lore, and a terrific piece of the current mythos, in that forest of his.
DETECTIVE COMICS #873 (DC)
Scott Snyder’s third issue wraps up his first arc, and makes a few more haunting suggestions about how he plans to approach Dick Grayson. If he digs much deeper, this will truly be a remarkable run, for both creator and character.
BLOCKBUSTERS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (Marvel)
Okay, so maybe it’s just me, but rather than being so encyclopedically thorough with these things, couldn’t Marvel be a little more reader-friendly? I’m not suggesting turning them into fluff, but there has to be a way to make it a little more…fun? Archives don’t make for casual reading, and when you release it in this format…fun should sort of be the mandate. Just saying…
ACTION COMICS #897 (DC)
Due to a shipping snafu, my store got double the number of this issue, which would be amusing if we sold this title half as well as we do BATMAN. In fact, if we sold any copies at all. We sell out of BATMAN, by the way, all two copies, every time. Anyway, Paul Cornell continues his tour with Lex Luthor, this time allowing The Joker to drop in for some fun. I think I would have more thoroughly enjoyed these stories if Cornell hadn’t believed he needed the gimmick of a guest star every issue. Or maybe it was a mandate he had to accept. Still, we do get another Larfleeze comic out of it!
That’s it, then (and pretty literally at that, pretty much). I’ll be moving into some interesting new topics in the coming weeks, so there’s definitely plenty of reasons to keep tuning in. The red phone is always open to calls, too!
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