Thoughts on FCBD 2017

Well, Free Comic Book Day 2017 is in the books.  How was yours truly's experiences this year?

I'd say pretty good.  The turnout at Zimmie's (Lewiston, Maine), at least at the point I went, was fairly tepid, but that was because of the weather.  For the preceding few days rain had been predicted and I think most people were driven away even by the drizzly conditions that actually surfaced.  I got in line with about a dozen minutes to spare, and it wasn't an especially long line, based on past experience.  It was mostly families with small kids (a reliable presence any FCBD), plus a few typical comic book store patrons.

The most shocking thing was that no one seemed particularly interested in excited chatter.  That's the biggest change from past FCBD experiences.  I blame, again, the weather, although again, I wasn't in line for very long.  I like to get there early, try and be the first one there, or among the first, and that didn't happen this year.  I don't know if all the chatter died during the wait, in the anxious anticipation of the last few minutes until the store opened.  The most exciting thing that happened was someone behind me dropping a little rubber ball they'd been playing with, the ball rolling under a car, and someone they were with saying that was for the best.  But yeah, the ball rolled back into reach, in case you were worried.

Then the store opened, and the cosplay presence, at the opening hour, was a New Hampshire Ghostbuster.  Ghostbusters have showed up at this store's FCBD in the past, so that wasn't a big surprise.  Their display in the store included several books, encompassing both the original movie era and the new one, two of them the "real" books referenced in the movies.  So that was fun.

Shuffling up to the offerings, I'd already decided what I wanted to get, and that's exactly what I got, so there wasn't much of a surprise or debate there.  This year I decided to be happy to not even have a shot at just anything that looked interesting.  I didn't plot to go to another participating store (there aren't any in the area anyway), or become upset about missing one or another release. 

Besides, I took advantage of the sales in the store, too, and treating the visit as another of my sporadic trips to the store, catching up with stories I wanted to read, and anything else that caught my eye.  I got a lot of good stuff, but I'm going to talk only about the freebies here.

So here's what I got and what I thought:

I Hate Image (Image)
Yeah, I wouldn't have predicted, just a few weeks ago, that I would've been interested in this.  Skottie Young was an artist I loved passionately a few years ago, when he was doing the Oz adaptations with Eric Shanower, but then those comics ended and he moved on to I Hate Fairyland at Image.  I Hate Fairyland, to all intents and purposes, looked like a release valve, a way for Skottie to express how much he hated doing the Oz stuff.  And I was greatly taken aback.  Shocked!  But then a few weeks back, I revisited the Oz stuff.  Time and distance and all that.  It became less precious.  Artists like to stretch themselves.  Skottie had become tied down to one particular association, and it was kind of bigger than him.  Even as he was making his name doing it, it was also as much if not more about the material than Skottie Young.  So of course he wanted to distance himself from it.

I Hate Image, meanwhile, is part of the company's 25th anniversary celebration.  In the same way Skottie skewers fairyland tropes in the series this special is based on, he viciously skewers Image.  Kind of refreshing!  Definitely fun to read!  And it also kind of shows what Skottie thinks most fans will know about Image's legacy in 2017.  Here's what I learned:

• Lying Cat really is the star of Saga. 
• The Walking Dead has kind of become the most famous thing Image ever did.  It's referenced twice by Skottie, once for the comic and once for the TV show.
• There are a ton of references to other material, some more obvious than others.  You kind of really need to know more about them to really get the more obvious ones.
• Chew has reached the status of definitely standing out from the pack.  In just three panels the concept is sold better than another one a few pages earlier that I assume references Jason Aaron's Southern Bastards, but wouldn't know without looking it up.
• The Wicked + The Divine, which has been one of the company's biggest buzz books in recent years, doesn't seem to rate anything more than a kind of mocking reference about a dance club that actually spends more time referencing recently deceased pop music acts than the comic.
• Which brings about a montage of semi-famous Image superheroes.  For whatever reason, Savage Dragon is lumped into this scene, even though he's one of two company-existence-spanning characters still in print today.  More on the other in a moment.
• Yeah, the other's Spawn.  He gets one of the featured acts of the comic, even though he's been about as irrelevant as Savage Dragon for years, despite the fact that both are two hundred plus issues into their runs.
• Then Skottie ruthlessly mocks famous Image creators themselves.  Apparently Todd McFarlane really loves to call people "bud."  The mot hilarious scene of the whole comic.

I came away loving Skottie Young all over again.

Keyser Soze: Scorched Earth (Red 5)
Red 5 used to be known, at least by me, for releasing a new Atomic Robo FCBD story every year.  But Red 5 doesn't publish Atomic Robo anymore (that would be IDW).  But the company still managed to interest me this year.  Keyser Soze is the infamous lead character of Bryan Singer's breakout movie, The Usual Suspects, the character Kevin Spacey is playing all along but you don't know it until the end.  (Edward Norton is actually the actor who attempted to make a career out of characters like this, starting the year after Usual Suspects was released, in Primal Fear.)  You might think doing a Keyser Soze follow-up is about twenty-two years late, but the character and the concept behind the character totally holds up, as this comic demonstrates.  It's the mystique of Keyser Soze that makes him so fascinating, his ability to dominate even in his (apparent) absence, a storytelling idea that still remains largely absent in fiction today. There's some hoodoo in the story, Keyser lighting his glove on fire and eventually leaving a highly visible calling card for investigators, including one who considers Keyser his "white whale" (Moby Dick reference).  It's not perfectly executed, but it gets the job done.  It proves all over again what a great idea Keyser Soze is.

Secret Empire (Marvel)
Like Skottie Young, I wouldn't have guessed I'd be interested in this one just a few weeks back.  But the Captain America Is A Nazi!!! controversy has only heated up in recent weeks and it's made it impossible to ignore the existence of Secret Empire.  Much has been made about Marvel's creative choices, but none of it means Marvel isn't telling good stories.  I learned that all over again last year, with FCBD itself, when I dove into Civil War II, which turned out to be one of my favorite comics of 2016.  I don't know how much of Secret Empire I'll actually read, but I love that Nick Spencer, well before the results of the 2016 election could have possibly been known, had struck on an idea that so closely mirrors the turmoil of the times (much as Civil War II did).  The idea of Captain America being a secret agent of Hydra, no matter how it happened or how it's ultimately resolved, is absolutely perfect, suddenly.  A lot of Americans woke up to a different country, in their minds, the day Trump won the presidency.  This story is like a metaphor about that. 

I've had my problems with Nick Spencer.  I've read a little of his Captain America, and found his creative merits somewhat dubious as a result.  I've read Nick Spencer before.  He was the guy responsible for "bowtie Jimmy Olsen," and he's been tinkering around Image for a few years, too (Infinite Vacation, Morning Glories).  But this FCBD edition of Secret Empire is absolutely pitch-perfect, the best stuff I've ever seen from Spencer.  He's in total narrative command, and he sells the concept like crazy.  That's exactly what you want to see from any creator, much less one deep into one of the biggest controversies in recent comics.

He's also got Andrea Sorrentino on art, and that's a huge plus.  Sorrentino has quietly been producing some of the best art in comics for years now.  He knocked I, Vampire out of the park.  He knocked Old Man Logan out of the part.  It's high, high time everyone notices how fantastic his art really is.

So I was pretty happy to read this one.  There's also a preview of Chip Zdarsky's forthcoming Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, which brims with spidery greatness.  No offense to Dan Slott, but Chip's material here harkens back to the gloriousness of the "Brand New Day" era, still my personal touchstone for the character.

X-O Manowar (Valiant)
This presentation of Matt Kindt's relaunch of the character isn't substantially different from what's found in the recently launched series itself, so instead I'll focus on the other material in the release.  There's a preview of Secret Weapons, which among other things features Nicole Finch, who can talk to birds.  Among a host of characters trying desperately to strike on a current sensibility, I think she fits it as well as anyone else.  I'd read a Nicole Finch, Bird Talker comic, easily.  The series also touches on the new era of data leaks, which is brilliant.

There's also a look at Jeff Lemire's latest evolution of Bloodshot, Bloodshot Salvation.  Lemire has become one of the best writers working in comics today, and his Bloodshot is a leading example of how that happened, and he shows no signs of slowing down.

There are also incredibly vague references to other stuff Valiant will be publishing in the future, none of which I found particularly effective.  Would love more Death-Defying Doctor Mirage, though...

Quarter Bin 91 "Captain America: Sam Wilson #1"

Captain America: Sam Wilson #1 (Marvel)
From December 2015

writer: Nick Spencer

artist: Daniel Acuna

Lately Marvel has been given a whole franchise to one writer, be it Brian Michael Bendis and Iron Man or Nick Spencer and Captain America.  Recently, Spencer debuted his second series, Captain America: Steve Rogers, which ignited a lightning rod when he revealed Steve has kind of been a Hydra agent all along (pay no attention to the Cosmic Cube behind the curtain).  So what about his Sam Wilson series?

Following on the heels of the earlier Sam Wilson/Captain America (which featured artwork from Stuart Immonen), this reboot picks things up in medias res, quite literally, with Sam in big trouble with everyone because he dares ask Americans to pay attention to crime around them.  Anyway, it's Spencer's bid to make Sam's Cap socially relevant.

If you had no idea why Sam even was Captain America, this issue is not going to help you.  It's part of Marvel's increasingly clumsy efforts to keep sales good by rebooting every series without a good reason, because for a lot of these series, the only thing changing is the creative team, such as the case is here.  Otherwise, there's no reason to have a new first issue if there's nothing but some engineered controversy to try and make it stand out.

That makes it ironic that Spencer's own Steve Rogers series has a real controversy, but then, it also has a rejuvenated Steve Rogers, who for a little while was an old man without super-soldier serum anymore.  This one just has Sam Wilson, randomly being Captain America, because he used to be his partner, as the otherwise totally unrelated Falcon (who has a falcon as an ally).

Sorry, I'm sounding negative again.  I swear I'll tone that down.

The art is from Daniel Acuna, who's been a Marvel guy for a few years now, but I still best remember as a DC guy, doing Freedom Fighters comics.  Here his work, whether intentionally or not, evokes Stuart Immonen's.  (See the note above.)  Still, I like his work and won't complain about that.

Reading Comics 193 "A skip week can be so dangerous..."

Covered this edition: Dark Knight III #5, Blood Feud #1, Steve Rogers: Captain America #2, The Rocketeer at War #4, We Are Robin #12, X-O Manowar Annual #1, and Heavy Metal #280.

Now, the whole point of this edition is that it comes from last week, which was a skip week for DC Rebirth, which meant there were no Rebirth titles published.  I shouldn't even have gone to the comic shop, right?  Well, I did go, and ended up finding stuff anyway...

Dark Knight III: The Master Race #5 (DC)
Admittedly, I haven't made a great effort reading the complete story, but it's always been worth checking in.  It's interesting, this issue, as Batman has been cast as a target the Kryptonians who are running amok (they escaped from the Bottle City of Kandor) trying to be gods consider him an element that needs to be eliminated in order to complete their conquest.  Batman, whether in Miller or Azzarello's voice, describes fear as his greatest ally.  "Fear is why I don't kill.  There is so much that I'm afraid of -- that we all are -- While you?  Just look at you, all -- Fearless.  You Don't stand a chance."  That reads like classic Dark Knight.  The depiction of other characters is excellent, too.  The Flash observes about Superman, "I know you were raised as a human, but every time you say, 'Oh my god,' I want to hand you a mirror."  In that particular sequence, Barry, whose feet have been crushed earlier, has been immobilized, but now he's using his speed to keep up with the Information Superhighway (remember that term?).  Who has ever thought of the Flash that way?  We see Aquaman riding majestically on a giant sea creature (I know there are plenty of people who will never lose the impression of him as a joke, but images like this are made to show us he's anything but).  But the greatest line of the issue belongs, again, to Batman: "I've never wielded an angry mob as a weapon before."  The issues ends as Batman realizes he really can't engage in the fight physically.  But it's okay, because Superman is fighting at his side again.  This really does feel like a necessary closing chapter in the Dark Knight saga.

Blood Feud #1 (Oni)
I got this one (the issue was actually released last October) because artist Drew Moss frequents the comic shop I've been going to, and I actually saw him drawing pages for this series (his editor was calling him to complain about how long it was taking).  I figured I owed Drew at least one issue.  (He just recently scored a new assignment: Jay Faerber's Copperhead, which I've sampled as part of my comiXology adventures, and I can vouch for as a result.)  The writer of Blood Feud is Cullen Bunn.  Having read this, I think I can finally contextualize Bunn for myself: he's another Scott Snyder.  Snyder first rose to prominence with American Vampire, which Blood Feud resembles in several ways, such as tone, and the presence of, well, vampires.  I've never read Bunn's Sixth Gun, the series he made his name on, but his mainstream work has always struck me as unwieldy, as if it were an ill-fit.  And maybe that's exactly what it is for him.  Not everyone is meant to write superheroes. 

Steve Rogers: Captain America #2 (Marvel)
The all-important follow-up to Steve Rogers, Agent of Hydra unexpectedly spells out exactly what's going on, and I can see where people who had no idea what was going on before last issue might not have seen this coming, because even I didn't, because it just seems too simple: it's that Cosmic Cube running around as a little girl, and Red Skull (of course Red Skull).  The issue reads better than the last one, possibly because it's so heavily centered on exposition (I'm not a reader bothered by that sort of thing) and as such the more cartoony elements of characterization are kept to a minimum (although, somewhat unfortunately, the Cosmic Cube girl suffers from it).  It's just unfortunate that this big idea was conceived, as can so easily be resolved, because the bad buy's plans always fall apart, which makes it all the more perverse to have Red Skull declaring that this time he's finally prevailed.  Yeah, right.  I'm not convinced that Nick Spencer is a much better writer than Ed Brubaker (I eventually soured on that run, although conversely acknowledge that it's probably Captain America's best-ever), but at least he gets right to the point.  Brubaker had a whole arc before he got around to explaining the Winter Soldier.  Points for speed, Spencer.

The Rocketeer at War #4 (IDW)
As an Atomic Robo fan, reading this sort of thing is kind of old hat at this point, but the Rocketeer is one of those superheroes that stands out from the pack of everyone outside the Big Two.  He even had his own movie in the '90s!  Although he's a thoroughly retro character, set in the era of WWII, Rocketeer actually dates only to 1982.  His helmet evokes Robo, but it also looks like Iron Man.  This is the character you've been looking for if Iron Man's actual comics have left you disappointed after all those movie appearances, because until recently Marvel never thought to duplicate that.  Marc Guggenheim, a screenwriter who dabbles in comics, and whom I discovered in this medium from his Resurrection, published at Oni, is the writer for this story, which centers as much on heroics as Rocketeer's effects on the ladies.  There's also a prose story, and in IDW's listings for other recent published works, Mark Russell's Apocrypha Now, a follow-up to his God is Disappointed in You.  I became a big fan of Russell from his Prez over at DC.  I will read this stuff eventually.

We Are Robin #12 (DC)
Catching up with this final issue, the group disbands after one last adventure involving a rogue member who's been convinced to participate in burglarizing Bruce Wayne, who's seen a faceless enemy of the people.  Alfred comes to the rescue, and Duke Thomas ends his days as a quasi Boy Wonder.  Some interesting observations to close out the series.

X-O Manowar Annual #1 (Valiant)
Speaking of finally figuring out Cullen Bunn, I think I finally figured out why Robert Venditti was tapped to replace Geoff Johns as the writer of Green Lantern in the New 52, because what Johns did for that franchise, Venditti did for X-O Manowar, and Valiant in general, establishing a bold new vision on which to hang further adventures across a variety of concepts.  It's just, I don't think Venditti was at all prepared to do it all over again.  Hey, not everyone is, especially when he's never left X-O, where he contends with alien armor being sported by a Visigoth who ended up as a superhero on Earth but is seen as a villain by the aliens he got it from.  The full scope of the concept is on display in this annual.  I'm glad I finally had a real look at Venditti's work.  As much as I've gotten into Valiant in the last few years, I never did get around to X-O, because I was disappointed with what I saw in X-O's early issues, and underwhelmed by Venditti's later Green Lantern work.  That's why it's always worth giving something additional chances.

Heavy Metal #280
Kind of the American version of 2000AD, this is a longstanding mature readers comics anthology magazine.  The reason I finally read an issue is because the new editor is Grant Morrison, who is also a contributor.  His story "Beachhead" is an ironic commentary on the relentlessness of military campaigns (aliens come to Earth when life is still at the bacterial phase, and the commander isn't satisfied with that as a reason to rethink his strategy).  The rest of the material is certainly interesting, in a variety of ways.  The one that strikes my fancy the most is the first installment of Mozchops' "Salsa Invertebraxa," which features some sweet poetry.  Besides that, there's Morrison's introduction, in which I have to face, all over again, the full brunt of his personality, which is always more complicated than I sometimes give him credit for.  The idealized version of Morrison, like how anyone imagines their idols, is someone much like themselves.  But Grant Morrison really is pretty wild, although he's not as gonzo as he can sometimes seem, if that makes any sense.  He's someone who's earned the confidence to voice his thoughts exactly as he thinks them, is all, and maybe isn't afraid to cater to the audience he's currently addressing, such as Heavy Metal readers...This feels like an ideal format for someone like Morrison, who's interested in the full possibilities of his chosen creative medium, with few restrictions when the story calls for it.  Not every story here is for mature readers, but none of it is particularly mainstream, without going the full underground that you might otherwise expect from material of that nature.  At any rate, I found myself capable of reading pretty much the whole thing without too much skimming, which is more than I can say for a lot of anthologies.

Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 (Marvel)

This is the comic that revealed the big bad secret about Steve Rogers.  I figured I should read it for myself.

Now, I've read Nick Spencer before.  This is the guy who famously gave Jimmy Olsen his bowtie back.  (Trust me, people talked about it.)  True, I lost track of Spencer for a few years, but I never forgot about him.  Now I'm wondering if that was a good thing.

The Nick Spencer who shows up in the pages of this comic has either been neutered, or has willingly embraced the Marvel ideology of putting in as many irreverent elements as possible.  Baron Zemo is made into a joke.  I have no affinity for Baron Zemo, but it makes little sense for him to have been relegated to comedic beats in the issue.

But what bothers me more is that to get Steve Rogers to the point where he ends the issue uttering, "Hail Hydra!," Spencer uses a series of flashbacks to find out what his parents were like.  Now, for a DC guy, family background can usually be depended on to have played a pretty important part in a character's moral development.  In Marvel comics, the only such character is Uncle Ben, who is famously sacrificed in Spider-Man's origin story to flesh out the "great powers, great responsibility" mandate.  Otherwise, families don't mean much for Marvel.  It's a superhero clubhouse where you either get along, or don't (Civil War).

Spencer's idea is that Rogers' little-seen parents do have a significant impact on him.  His father is a bum, and his mother is an overworked woman who finds solace in a friend who eventually introduces her to the wonders of Hydra.  It's implied, though not spelled out at this point, that she takes up the membership offer, and that Steve has thusly been an agent of Hydra the entire time we've known him.

It's not even the Hydra twist that bothers me, but how Spencer runs roughshod over the Rogers family to reach that point.  The Steve Rogers we've always known has had a stronger-than-average morality, which is the while reason he was chosen for the Super Soldier program in the first place.  I know they make a big deal out of this in Captain America: The First Avenger, anyway.

The Hydra presented by Spencer is a movement geared toward the terrible economy of today, and those willing to exploit it for their own ends.  He trots out Red Skull (the sad part about Captain America is that he seems to inspire an incredibly limited rogues gallery, one that invariably trots out Nazis, because that's who the bad guys were when he first became a superhero) as a recruiter in the present day.  If this were a DC comic, the Rogers family status as immigrants would have been relevant.  I mean, DC is full of immigrants.  DC wouldn't have missed that.  Spencer ignores this, however, and looks for shortcuts like what he does to Steve's dad.

I know all this sounds like I'm merely reiterating that I'm a DC guy and not a Marvel guy, and playing into my own prejudices.  And maybe it is.  But this is a whole story about prejudices, that completely ignores the role prejudice plays in it.  You can see how Hydra ended up inspiring Cobra in the G.I. Joe comics.  But even Cobra has better characterization than Hydra these days.

It's simplistic storytelling.  That's what bothers me.  It speaks to fans who like simplistic storytelling.  That's the only reason why Marvel would tell stories like this.  It focuses on the big twist, and ignores any other calls for subtlety.  Marvel is a place where you'll find a comic for every reader (and there are some for me), but it presses hard for the hardcore fan, the one who will unquestioningly accept anything, and so to shock these fans, they have to do truly outrageous things.

Well, one would be to ask their writers to hold themselves to a higher standard. 

Quarter Bin 76 "Automatic Kafka, and other stuff"

A lot of comics bought from an actual quarter bin.  Don't say it never happens...

Automatic Kafka #2 (WildStorm)
From October 2002.
Joe Casey was one of the big names in comic at that time, but then he split off with a couple of his fellow luminaries to form Man of Action, which produced hit concepts like Ben 10 and Big Hero 6.  But before he left, he left a splash, with stuff like Automatic Kafka.  Chances are if he hadn't left, Kafka would have a lasting memory.  Like a lot of Casey and WildStorm's efforts from that time, it was a post-millennial superhero deconstruction project, although today it looks like a precursor to Matt Kindt's MIND MGMT, which to my mind is a very good thing.  So it was certainly a pleasure to read some of it, and I certainly wouldn't mind reading more.  It was certainly the most pleasant discovery of this particular lot, although there was plenty of other good stuff, such as:

Batman: Futures End #1 (DC)
From November 2014.
The Futures End specials were such a rich creative opportunity, and I love checking out what the more adventurous ones attempted.  This one wasn't an attempt, it was Scott Snyder, with Ray Fawkes scripting, revisiting his fascinating vision of the future Batman, so obsessed with his mission that he sets up a series of clones who will continue it indefinitely.  It was easily Snyder's richest Batman concept, and one seen otherwise only sparingly, from a short story in the pages of the anniversary Detective Comics #27.  I didn't read this special when it was originally released, because I didn't imagine that Snyder would revisit the concept, and fan reactions at the time didn't catch on to the significance of the issue, but I eventually read it digitally, and so now I've got a physical copy as well.  This is the origin of the clone initiative, an older Batman who defies the odds and breaks into Lex Luthor's secret lab to get what he needs for it.  I'd love if Snyder eventually returned again to the concept, but a small collection of these two stories wouldn't be out of order, either, so fans know they exist...

Bone Holiday Special (Hero)
From 1993.
This was something of an unbelievable find, a Hero magazine special from the early days of Jeff Smith's Bone.  In it is an exclusive story, plus an interview (Smith comes off as less than impressive, alas), and reprints of early strips predating Bone, back when it was called Thorn.  Bone is an endlessly charming memory, one of my all-time favorite comics, and Smith has proven to be an enduring talent as well, with RASL and Tuki (an ongoing project) also under his belt by this point.

Cerebus #201 (Aardvark-Vanaheim)
From December 1995.
Dave Sim is such a unique character in comics lore.  He was a virtual god of the indy press at his prime, but since Cerebus ended fans have tended to reflect more on his alleged shortcomings than on what he accomplished.  This issue begins the "Guys" arc, and seems to feature parodies of George Harrison and Ringo Starr (and virtually incomprehensible dialogue to match their accents).  I have no idea how representative it is of Cerebus as a whole, but it was certainly unique reading.  Sim includes an origin of Cerebus (and the name of its publisher, Aardvark-Vanaheim) in an essay, so that was pretty lucky for a guy who's not usually lucky enough to find an issue...

Chosen #2 (Dark Horse)
One of Mark Millar's formative projects (he's since retitled it American Jesus, and plans on further volumes) features a boy who may or may not be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.  It's actually pretty interesting.

Empire #3 (DC)
From November 2003.
Mark Waid was my favorite '90s comic book writer.  Eventually, he started to try and figure out how he was going to follow up all the stuff he'd accomplished in that decade, and everything he's done since has been a continuation of that.  Empire was his first shot at what the kind of superhero storytelling he later developed in his Irredeemable comics.  The concept was, What if the bad guy wins?  This issue features the superhero who the villain only wants the world to think died.  I don't know, maybe my lackluster opinion of Waid in the last few decades colors my impression of Empire, but it's hard to see now why fans were so wild about it.  But they've consistently been wild about a lot of minor work from Waid.  I should know.  I knew his work when it was great...

Green Lantern: Mosaic #6 (DC)
From November 1992.
1992 was from the era I last saw bargain packs all over the place, and how I first discovered Green Lantern: Mosaic.  This was, as I know understand it, the Vertigo version of Green Lantern.  Gerard Jones ruled the whole Green Lantern landscape at that time, and it was surprisingly expansive landscape at that time.  Mosaic was the big gamble.  I guess I couldn't really appreciate how big a gamble it was until I read its letters column.  The first issue of the series was the first issue I read, and for decades remains the only issue.  But I loved that issue.  Eventually, I caught another issue, and then even the arc from Green Lantern where it originated.  Turns out, fans really didn't know what to make of it, and Jones didn't go out of his way to make it any easier.  I mean, this was a Vertigo title.  And it seriously needs to be rediscovered.  It's pretty much the Green Lantern version of Grant Morrison's Animal Man.  And this is how you make John Stewart relevant.

Haven: The Broken City #9 (DC)
From October 2002.
A couple of upstart creators were given a shot at creating something new at DC.  This was a time of pretty wild experimentation at DC, and so it was as good a time to let upstart creators try their thing as any.  The result is better than its complete lack of impact indicates.  I caught the first issue from the same quarter bin a little while back, so it only seemed appropriate that I caught the last issue, too.  Bookending the series were two specials featuring the Justice League.  I don't really know what happened, why the upstarts vanished and the whole thing forgotten.  But it didn't really deserve that fate.

Hawkeye #3 (Marvel)
From December 2012.
But then again, the much better established Matt Fraction couldn't help this series make a bigger impact...

Infinite Vacation #5 (Image)
Back when I thought I was going to continue to be a big fan of Nick Spencer, I caught the first issue of this one, and so reading the last one seemed like it would finally be appropriate.  In hindsight Infinite Vacation may be remembered, if anything, for helping launch Image's continuing obsession with really bold coloring.  This is the era of colorists, folks.

Infinity Man and the Forever People: Futures End #1 (DC)
From November 2014.
This Futures End special is pretty good, too, and is the first time I actually read this New Gods series.  I think its only shortcoming is that it...really doesn't seem all that relevant a New Gods concept.  But it's still a good read!

Justice League Europe #36 (DC)
From March 1992.
Gerard Jones again, this time helping smooth the transition from the Giffen/DeMatteis era to the Jurgens era, as he dismantles the old Bwa-Ha-Ha League (a lot of the members in this issue join Jurgens' Justice League America).

The Mice Templar: Volume IV - Legend #3 (Image)
From June 2013.
I was such a fan of Mice Templar, but I kind of got...tired of it after a while.  The black and white art doesn't help, because it's hard to distinguish characters, especially since they're all rodents.  But it was such an ambitious concept, and eventually ran for, I think, forty-two issues across five mini-series.  This is actually a pretty good issue, and the new essay writer explains the history of anthropomorphic storytelling, which is kind of handy.  So it was a good random issue to help revisit the concept.  Plus, the Salmon of Knowledge! 

Moon Knight #16 (Marvel)
From August 2015.
Predictably, Cullen Bunn features the least imaginative version of Marvel's project to make Moon Knight its second most interesting character (actual storytelling results may vary), after Deadpool.  Although I hear Jeff Lemire is doing some truly killer work with the concept at the moment...

Promethea #22 (ABC)
From November 2002.
Alan Moore is the comics genius (so proclaimed by at least one whole generation of fans) I consider more lackluster than not.  Promethea was his project with future superstar J.H. Williams III, who later collaborated with Neil Gaiman on a new Sandman.  Speaking of which, this issue reads like a lackluster, Alan Moore version of Sandman.  And speaking of which...

Sandman #63 (Vertigo)
I've been trying to catch up with Gaiman's seminal comics saga for a while (as evidenced by my annotations of The Annotated Sandman, a project that will continue at some point).  This issue is from late in the series and, more specifically, "The Kindly Ones."  It is not, however, particularly an issue to hold against counterfeit Alan Moore Sandman.  It's a pretty busy issue, and certainly better than Moore's effort, but not an easy issue to laud among the greater Gaiman material available...

Smax #3 (ABC)
From December 2003.
"ABC," by the way, stands for "America's Best Comics."  Which these really aren't.  They were pretty popular at the time, and Alan Moore's last real stab at popular work (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came from this era), and the funny thing is, they were all variations on stuff he originally did for Rob Liefeld.  It makes sense somehow.  Anyway, if Moore weren't so completely obsessed with sex, he might do better work.  That's my theory, anyway...

Superman/Wonder Woman Annual #2 (DC)
From February 2016.
This is pretty much how the romance ends.  It's kind of sad.

The New Titans #66 (DC)
From May 1990.
The cover of this later issue from the seminal Wolfman/Perez collaboration features Raven...not making out with Dick Grayson.  It only looks that way.  Raven's meddling in Dick's love life would come a little later in Wolfman's run (a development that's routinely overlooked by fans, by the way).  It's worth noting that George Perez is not on art duties this issue, but rather co-scripting (the beginning, perhaps, of his writing career).  The art, rather, comes from the formative pen of Tom Grummett, whose style is somewhat evident in this early work.  If memory serves me right, he's also drawing when Wolfman has Raven crash Dick's would-be nuptials with Starfire...

The Legend of Will Power #1, 2 (Primal Paper)
From March, August 2011.
A local comics creator produced these comics (it's always worth sampling the native talent, which includes Drew Moss, who was in the store sketching once, and complaining about his publisher complaining about him...).  This isn't Moss, however, but Vince White, and the reason I picked up these issues was because I had the suspicion there might be some Green Lantern in these pages.  But the utter lack of connection between the superhero and his name (which is actually his real name) shows the disconnect between White's ambitions and his actual talent.  He's a better artist.  He needed a co-writer.  Live and learn?

Reading Comics 182 "Making a commitment"

Yesterday I went to see Deadpool and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (thought it was entertaining, loved it, respectively) and in between visited Heroes & Villains again.  I wanted to order a copy of Omega Men #3 (the only one missing from my physical collection) and pick up the latest issue, #10.  Then I put in reserves for the two remaining issues, and next week's Wonder Woman: Earth One from Grant Morrison.  Omega Men, as anyone who's been reading this blog since last fall will know, has become my favorite recent comic, certainly favorite since Morrison's Annihilator which concluded early last year (and topped the last two annual QB50 lists).  Things rarely work out this way for me (yet), but ideally I'd like to see Omega Men remembered in the same ranks as Alan Moore's Watchman as a seminal superhero comic.  It's just that good.  It changes everything.  At least DC has rewarded writer Tom King with the plush assignment of Batman in the impending Rebirth era.

I walked away with a few other comics, and so I'll talk about that stuff:

Sam Wilson: Captain America #7 (Marvel)
Billed on the cover as celebrating Cap's 75th anniversary, this supersize issue features a pivotal moment in the "Standoff" crossover arc, for Steve Rogers, and a few extra stories from some acclaimed creators.  The lead features Sam Wilson, who's been Captain America for the past year or so but is also familiar to fans as Falcon, as he enters Maria Hill's misguided supervillain reconstruction town.  He teams up with Bucky, who still responds to the name of Winter Soldier these days.  The writer is Nick Spencer, who made a splash with DC a handful of years ago but has otherwise been making his name with the Image series Morning Glories.  (I'm surprised his name didn't already have a label here, because I was reading him in those early years, including the start of Glories, but I guess that was just before I started this blog.)  Joss Whedon teams with superstar artist John Cassaday for a tale from Cap's WWII past, Tim Sale does a mostly wordless story concerning Cap's oft-overlooked parents, and Greg Rucka features Steve Rogers at the ballet, along with artist Mike Perkins, who worked on Ed Brubaker's Captain America, as well as Marvel's ambitious adaption of Stephen King's The Stand.  Rucka and Perkins easily have the best work in the issue.

Omega Men #10 (DC)
King finally gets to the war the Omega Men have been plotting against the Citadel from the very start, and predictably, there's very little glory to be found, just mere survival.  Kyle Rayner stumbled into the fight of his life, one that has nothing to do with Green Lanterns, and by the end of the issue he walks off into the distance, and his last words in the issue are, "No.  No, I'm...I'm just another Omega Man."  King's quote from William James (always one of my favorite features in this series) says, "Truth happens to an idea.  It becomes true, is made true by events."  It's not until this issue that the Omega Men have truly been allowed to do what they've been promising all along, to be the heroes in a great fight for freedom.  What does it feel like to be a part of that?  Although King has been featuring the secret origins of the team itself, the series has had Kyle at its core since the start.  He doesn't revel in the results they've had so far.  Not having a personal stake, it means something different to him, but it has become personal.  That's King's genius. 

Prez #6 (DC)
This is the final issue of the initial run.  DC's promised to let Prez complete its twelve issue run, just as with Omega Men, but it'll take a little longer.  Ben Caldwell has since started work at Marvel.  I hope he'll be back to finish Prez, because Mark Russell's biting political satire is truly some of the best mainstream work I've seen in years, challenging what I believe, and I still love it.  That's just one of the many things to love about it.  I'm glad to have finally read the issue.

Superman/Batman #1 Special Edition (DC)
This was a freebie released in conjunction with Dawn of Justice, reprinting the debut issue of Jeph Loeb's modern World's Finest series.  Loeb had become one of the most acclaimed writers in comics at the time, and this series continued his trademark psychological insight into superheroes he'd previously brought to works like Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman For All Seasons, plus the more contemporary Hush arc with Jim Lee, in which he helped shape the landscape of DC at that time.  In this issue, President Luthor is still in office, one of the key developments that stretched from the dawn of the millennium to Infinite Crisis, characterization that reflects Lex's role in the later Geoff Johns Justice League and Zack Snyder's Dawn of Justice.  There are far worse free comics out there...