Reading Comics 221 "Tampa Comic Con 2018"

This past Saturday I attended my first ever comic con, packed to the gills with geeky goodness.  I picked up a few comics and a bunch of collections (but I haven't gotten around to transposing any of my Goodreads collections reviews here, even though that's been a goal for a few years now).  Here's some thoughts!

The Couch Preview
A typical sketchy-art indy book featuring a twist on superheroes: the lead is actually a psychiatrist whose career is flatlining when he suddenly finds himself with an unexpected new clientele: Wrecking Ball and the Ultra Squad. 

Invincible Iron Man #600 (Marvel)
The last-forever-for-now Brian Michael Bendis Marvel comic!  I've been trying to track down a copy for a little while now, so it was great to find one in one of the vendors' discount bins.  The story wraps up "The Search for Tony Stark," and explains what happened to him, and how he used that to also revive Jim Rhodes.  Marvel also decided to stick with the whole adoption concept another writer introduced a few years back, and Bendis gives us a look at the birth parents.  We see Riri Williams joining a team that also includes Miles Morales, destined to be one of Bendis's lasting contributions to Marvel lore, and his epic Ultimate Spider-Man run.  He skirts the whole idea of Doctor Doom running around as Iron Man recently.  He spends a lot of time with the A.I. Tony ruminating on the nature of his existence, which might as well be considered allegorical for Bendis reflecting on his big transition.  In lieu of one final signature letters/hype column and/or farewell essay, he gives readers some photographs of important behind-the-scene moments from about the last ten years of his Marvel tenure.  It was worth having a look at.

Jupiter's Legacy 2 #4, 5 (Image)
The final issues of the second (technically fourth, if you include the two Jupiter's Circle series with a different artist) volume of Mark Millar and Frank Quitely's bid for a grand superhero generational statement.  It's sometimes hard to separate the hype from the emerging legacy of a Millar comic.  All I know is Quitely feels constrained compared to stuff I've seen him do with Grant Morrison (their Multiversity: Pax Americana is my favorite collaboration between them).  I do like the emphasis on generations, though by "generational," earlier, I was talking about a generation-defining comic like Watchmen. 

Kamandi Challenge #9 (DC)
Tom King's issue in the grand concept of new creators every issue for a year, with each new team finishing whatever cliffhanger the one before it left them.  I'm not sure if King's goal here was to do that or comment on the existential nature of the concept.  Not sure it's one of his better comics, but certainly interesting, as King always is.

Millarworld New Talent Annual 2017 (Image)
Two years running I entered this contest and lost, and it's always interesting to see the script that beat me.  (Two years running I'm not impressed).  The highlights from the results this time are more plentiful than the previous one.  The Empress story (that's the one I entered this time) features great art from Luana Vecchio, with watercolor coloring that helps it additionally stand out.  Simon James' Superior script is pretty great.  Martin Renard's Super Crooks script is pretty clever.  The whole Huck package, writing from Stephanie Cooke and art from Jake Elphick, sells the concept pretty well.  I'm glad I was able to catch a copy of this finally, too.

Nibiru and the Legend of the Anunnaki #1, 2 (Fat Cat)
This is exactly the sort of thing you hope to find at a convention, especially one with name creators (I went to one in Colorado Springs, much smaller, with a bunch of local talent).  Neal Adams was there, and Fabien Nicieza ("creator of Deadpool," his table said, with the only official line of all the creators), and Scott Lobdell!  But the one I stopped at was Pat Broderick's.  The Pat Broderick who spoke to me was actually his wife.  Pat Broderick the classic Marvel/DC artist didn't really do much talking and/or interacting in general, which was fine.  The Pat Broderick who was his wife was very, very eager to talk, constantly hyping Nibiru even after I'd said I would buy it, and even after I bought it!  That's exactly the kind of help you want at something like this!  The comic itself features landscape formatting inside and...fairly atrocious editing.  The art can be a little rough, too.  Still, I appreciated having a look and supporting a guy who's been in the business a long time and sometimes not had the easiest time staying in.  Apparently he's a Tampa local and has had some professional jobs around town, too.  I figured Nibiru was his bid to get back into comics, in the thoroughly modern sense (the project was launched via Kickstarter, naturally).  The storytelling is very much in the Prince Valiant vein. Two issues in and it's basically still setup, though the action picks up with naked men fighting each other in the second issue.  The Pat Broderick who was his wife assured me the third issue was publishing soon, and I've seen art from the next few issues.  These two were published in 2016. 

Scout Comics Presents #1 (Scout Comics)
For a small publisher, there's a lot of excellent art and even decent storytelling on display in the previews included.  The least successful concept is actually Stabbity Rabbit, which had its own table at the con, separate from the one where I picked this up, which is too bad, because something called Stabbity Rabbit sounds like it really ought to be awesome. 

Reading Comics 194 "DC Rebirth Week Six, Earth 2, Millarworld Annual, The Vision, Old Man Logan"

Covered this edition: Detective Comics #936, Earth 2: Society #14, The Flash #2, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps: Rebirth #1, Millarworld Annual 2016, Nightwing: Rebirth #1, Action Comics #959, New Super-Man #1, The Vision #9, Old Man Logan #8, and Wonder Woman #2.

Gosh, so I kind of got all the DC Rebirth releases this week...

Detective Comics #936 (DC)
This isn't the first Detective Comics issue of the Rebirth era, but I was curious to read an issue because the spotlight was on Batwoman, Kate Kane, a character that's fascinated me since her debut in 52.  As one of the more high profile openly homosexual characters in comics, Batwoman has had a certain level of prominence over the years, although since she was created by Greg Rucka and had J.H. Williams III as her artist for a number of years, she was allowed a great deal of creative freedom, too, up to and...excluding, infamously, a wedding in her New 52 series.  The writer of Detective Comics is James Tynion IV, whom I've somewhat unfairly judged over the years due to his association with Scott Snyder, whom I've sometimes found difficult to appreciate.  But Tynion is a pretty good writer, and as this issue is a pretty good Batwoman story, I may have to once and for resolve to consider Tynion positively going forward. 

Earth 2: Society #14 (DC)
I'm not sure how much Dan Abnett is commenting on the creative reputation of the series he inherited several issues ago or if it's just coincidence, but there's much ado about the broken nature of the new society this alternate world of heroes represents.  Still, there's a strong focus on Dick Grayson's Batman, which hasn't really happened since Convergence, and that was good to see, as was the return of his son.  Which, all told, Dick himself is far less pleased about, given the unfortunate circumstances...I still think Earth 2, under its various creative directors, has been one of the shining successes of the New 52 era.

The Flash #2 (DC)
Barry Allen begins training his friend and colleague August Heart, who has just acquired access to the Speed Force, and that's fun in and of itself, their contrasting stances on what they should do with it, when the series takes a page from the unrelated TV show and has STAR Labs become the source of trouble, revealing who's behind the freak lightning storms, and what they're after.  It's such a good feeling, knowing I love reading The Flash again...

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps: Rebirth #1 (DC)
Maybe it was because I never intended to read it full-time, but Robert Venditti's Green Lantern eventually lost its status as a worthy creative follow-up to the work of Geoff Johns, in my estimation, and once it fell, it plummeted.  Funny enough, Venditti explains his thought process in this issue, and it has great relevance in the policing controversies spread across newspapers seemingly every day for the past few years.  I have no idea where Venditti started the idea, but it begins to make more sense, seeing it all laid out, and where he has Hal Jordan continue to go with it.  So I'm glad I can finally say I get his take.  It's not Johns (but few could be).  And I'm okay with that.

Millarworld Annual 2016 (Image)
Putting all the cards on the table, the international competition for this thing that sought submissions from new creators was something I entered last year, basing my entry on Starlight, which you can look elsewhere to see how much I enjoyed.  I've been a member of the Millarworld message boards ever since, and so was able to keep tabs on when this would be released.  Obviously I had something of a vested interest in it.  The writer I got to know the best from the boards, perhaps somewhat naturally, was Deniz Camp, whose Starlight effort did win.  I can admire Camp, because he too admires Grant Morrison.  But the standout entry in the annual, for me, very easily, was Cliff Bumgardner's American Jesus script (just as amazingly illustrated by Steve Beach), which took a moment out of time from Mark Millar's original comic (originally titled Fallen) and explored the consequences of saving a dog's life, which was to inadvertently have the effect of stopping death from occurring, during those moments, around the whole world.  It gave me chills to read.  It was like reading Stephen King, or at any rate, a first-fate professional.  Kudos, Cliff!

Nightwing: Rebirth #1 (DC)
This was exactly the connecting story fans of Dick Grayson could have hoped for, as Dick's adventures with Spyral aren't just unceremoniously dumped, but incorporated into his greater adventures, as he realizes he probably really does have to become Nightwing again, an identity Tim Seeley (Dick Grayson's amazing co-writer, along with the incomparable Tom King, but more on him a little later) explains, as been explained many times before but still comes out fresh, because for the duration of the New 52 it was kind of ignored, as having been inspired by Superman and not Batman, as might be easy to assume.  There's also some good Parliament of Owls stuff in the issue, proving that maybe that whole story really should have been Dick's all along...

Action Comics #959 (DC)
The Rebirth era Doomsday saga continues, with parallels popping up all over the places, plus a few new wrinkles, like Superman being forced to concede that the New 52 Lex Luthor may not actually be an exact match for the one he used to know.  Otherwise, the reader will just have to continue waiting to see just where the new wrinkles are really headed...

New Super-Man #1 (DC)
I loved, loved, loved Tony Bedard's The Great Ten, which was about a group of Chinese superheroes.  Each issue told each member's story.  It was a true overlooked masterpiece.  Fortunately, someone realized China is perhaps a hotter topic today than when Great Ten was published only a handful of years ago.  And even more fortunately, a writer of Gene Luan Yang's quality is around to explore the landscape all over again.  Yang's Superman wasn't everyone's cup of tea, perhaps unfortunately coinciding with the "Truth" arc that wasn't really what anyone wanted to read in the Man of Steel's adventures.  His New Super-Man features as unlikely a protagonist as you'll find.  When first seen he appears to be a jerk!  (Bonus points to the Silver Age for being relevant again.)  But his personality is entirely in keeping with Chinese society, which is an extreme example of what we experience in the States (and you thought it was bad here!), with income disparity resulting in social dynamics that will probably surprise readers.  Yang's origin continues along so that his Chinese Superman ends up kind of being a DC Captain America, with his powers literally being infused into him (and making Chinese Superman to be something of the Rebirth Superboy).  I applaud DC and Yang for coming up with this, and I hope enough readers are culturally curious enough to keep it going a while.

The Vision #9 (Marvel)
For me, there was no question that Tom King's greatest superhero work of the past year was The Omega Men, to the point where I was willing to sell his Vision short (heh).  Yet, as of this issue, which details how Runaways character Victor Mancha went from uncle to murderer, explaining all over again how rich a creative source King's war experience really is, I'm completely sold on it.  So clearly King had room for two masterworks, in a very short time.  Here's hoping he has many more.

Old Man Logan #8 (Marvel)
This spin-off of Mark Millar's original story, generated in the wake of Secret Wars and I'm not sure how related to a similar Brian Michael Bendis mini-series during that event, was something I was slow to give much credit to (there I go again), because I just didn't see the point.  But if comic book logic counts for anything, then something like this makes its own kind of sense.  And it can't possibly hurt to have Jeff Lemire writing.  This is the story of Wolverine, decades older, whose whole life and world crumbled in the wake of a catastrophic supervillain victory (think Final Crisis or  Forever Evil, but more permanent), and he was left virtually alone to pick up the pieces.  Somehow he was transported to the present.  This issue, Lemire helpfully spells out the whole thing, and helps Logan come to a kind of peace with his situation.  He's been in constant dread that he's going to have to experience the fall all over again.  Curiously, the time-displaced Jean Grey, from Bendis's (it figures, right?) All-New X-Men, is the one who helps him.  This is Jean at the start of her career.  She hadn't even met Logan yet, when she was pulled from the past.  And all over again, the value of Jean Grey is exhibited.  Great issue.

Wonder Woman #2 (DC)
Greg Rucka's origin of Wonder Woman begins.  Suddenly, there are a million Wonder Woman origin stories going on.  There's Legend of Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman: Earth One, the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, the upcoming Wonder Woman: The True Amazon...  Yet, for all that, it is worth visiting and revisiting.  Every creator has a fresh perspective, and with Wonder Woman, finally getting her creative due, it's more relevant than ever before.  This is a character who's always been touted as one of DC's most important characters, but she's never been near as popular as Superman or Batman, and as such her origin isn't as well-known.  As more fans come to check out what she's all about, it presents, obviously, a rich opportunity to explore, right from the beginning of the story.  Rucka's vision is pretty focused, as the Amazonian princess Diana is alone interested in a world she never knew, as she's the first of her kind to be born since they were sealed off from Man's World.  He assumes you already know, or don't care, about the particulars of her birth (although the alternating arc in this twice-monthly series does feature exactly that), and just runs from there.  The in-house ads talk about each series of the Rebirth era featuring a new epic that starts now, and as far as I can tell, that's exactly what DC has been delivering.  Azzarello set such a high mark in the New 52 with Wonder Woman.  Rucka seems intent to, and capable of, surpassing it.