Reading Comics 205 "Trips from the past month"

Here's a rundown of what I've been reading lately, sort of a hodgepodge of new and slightly less new material (new titles in bold, slightly les new titles in italics):

Batman #23, 25, 26 (DC)
Tom King is still doing wonders in this title.  The first issue is the Swamp Thing issue, while the latter two are the beginning of "The War of Jokes and Riddles".  I was thwarted in my attempts to find a copy of #24 (the proposal issue) and Batman/Elmer Fudd, alas.

Dark Knight III: The Master Race #9 (DC)
Miller/Azzarello/Kubert finally delivered the conclusion of this story.  I like how the ending is basically that Batman is finally acknowledging that he can learn from someone else.  Seems like a metaphor, Miller's concession that it was okay for Azzarello to help out.

Codename: Baboushka #1, 3 (Image)
What with Atomic Blonde hitting screens soon (based on his Coldest City graphic novel), I figured it was time I had a look at another Antony Johnston spy comic.  It's good stuff.

Dark Days: The Forge (DC)
The title of this event and the manner of starting it are peculiar things that still elude me, but this particular piece struck me as pure Scott Snyder.  He may not be my favorite, but I'm glad he's finally getting to tell a DC event comic.

Earth 2 #24 (DC)
Funny to go back to the early days (relatively speaking) of Earth 2 and read the story where this reality's Superman first reveals his costume.  Also interesting to see the Thomas Wayne Batman in action.  That's honestly one of my favorite Earth 2 elements to this day.

Earth 2: World's End #7 (DC)
The weekly comic spinoff got crapped on ten ways to...Wednesday, I guess.  But it reads okay to me, every time I sample it.  Includes a nice nod to the "lost" Alan Scott gay storyline from Earth 2's early days.

The Flash #14 (DC)
It's, I don't know, hilarious or sad, but I was reminded recently that Josh Williamson worked on Captain Midnight, a Dark Horse comic that received a Free Comic Book Day back in Williamson's pre-DC days, and a collection I received from one of those crate companies a few years back.  I was not a fan.  I outright dismissed it both times.  So this is one of the more remarkable turnarounds I've experienced as a reader, because I remain a fan of Williamson's recent work.  I'm torn about rereading the Captain Midnight collection.  What if I dismissed it for all the wrong reasons?  What if I convince myself I like it now just because I now associate good things with Williamson?  Anyway, this issue begins a Rogues arc.

Green Valley #1, 2, 3 (Image)
Max Landis made a name for himself writing the movie Chronicle, but I became a fan reading Superman: American Alien.  I'm glad I got around to reading some of his original concept comic Green Valley, about knights being confronted with what as of the last issue I read seems to be a time-traveling dude from more or less the present with future tech he doesn't really understand. 

Justice League Dark #35 (DC)
Focuses mostly on Zatanna.  Honestly, if her main distinguishing feature weren't casting spells by speaking backwards, Zatanna would be so much bigger.  Also glimpsed: Frankenstein and the lead from I, Vampire, two relatively short-lived New 52 characters whose series I caught up on in their collections a few months back.  Also, Zatanna's Identity Crisis actions are coming back to haunt her in the Rebirth era.  That's cool.

Justice League #33 (DC)
Funny to see what's become of the concepts Geoff Johns was exploring in this issue: 1) the Doom Patrol, in a different incarnation, now stars in a Young Animal series, 2) Jessica Cruz now stars in Green Lanterns, and 3) Lex Luthor has continued his strange heroics in the pages of Action Comics.  Clearly fruitful ideas, Geoff!

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #1 (DC)
Love that DC gave Williamson a soft event book.  He deserves it.  Also love that Max Lord is revealed as the villain on the last page.

King #1 (Jet City)
I really wish Joshua Hale Fialkov could enjoy greater exposure.  This thematic update of Kamandi, however, is probably not the best way to go about it, entertaining though it may be.

Monstress #1, 12 (Image)
This is one of those books I've heard and heard and heard about, and so I figured I should finally have a look at it.  The extra-length first issue was reprinted at $1.99, so I scooped that up, plus what's counted as the most recent issue for a few months now (returning from hiatus soon!).  Marjorie Liu actually kind of interests me more as a creator who like Gene Yang is bringing an international voice to the table.  Seems a lot like Saga, insofar as it includes random elements of mature material.

Saga #43 (Image)
Speaking of which!  This special twenty-five cent issue (it's Image's 25th anniversary, yo!) was practically a gimme on two scores: 1) the price, obviously, and 2) the price combined with the fact that I've been a faithful reader in the past, but've lapsed in recent years.  So here was my chance to catch up.  Again the series seems almost as interested in cheap shock tactics as decent storytelling, which is what bumped me off the bandwagon, the seeming increased inability to balance these instincts.  I guess at this point it seems necessary, the cheap shock tactics.  The tactics this issue, of all issues (!), where potential new readers might have no idea what they're in for, include what's apparently a flippant trip to an abortion clinic, which is such a galvanizing issue, where you'll either get people to love or hate you depending on your conclusions.  And what's become typical of Saga, it reaches different conclusions (probably) than what they initially seem.  So I don't really know if I should care about this series again...

Saucer State #1, 2 (IDW)
I could not have been happier when Paul Cornell announced that his short-lived Vertigo series Saucer Country was due for a revival at IDW.  So when I had a chance to scoop it up, I scooped it up.  Funny that artist Ryan Kelly seems to have somewhat changed his style since the last time he drew these characters, but colorist Adam Guzowski does what he can to keep thing fairly consistent.  The story itself remains intriguing, by the way!

Superman: Doomed #2 (DC)
I've been trying to track this down (not too hard, but y'know) for a while, so I'm glad I finally succeeded.  This update of Doomsday not only led to the short-lived Doomed series that saw an updated Alpha Centurion debut in the New 52 (!), but also featured Brainiac a relative handful of months before his big New 52 event, Convergence, which this issue, knowingly or otherwise, alludes to.  There were so many complaints about Superman in the New 52, but I think a lot of them were a result of previous complaints that just kept snowballing rather than had a real basis in the comics themselves.  This was good stuff.

Superman #33, 42 (DC)
Speaking of Gene Yang (a little earlier; feel free to scroll up a little!), the latter issue is one of his, while the former is Geoff Johns'.  I think this was an especially good time to be reading Superman, personally, and yeah, it was New 52 material.

Wonder Woman #1 (DC)
Greg Rucka got a lot of hate, surprisingly, for his Rebirth run.  I guess he was too ambitious.  He ruffled feathers by contradicting Brian Azzarello's New 52 run (even though it wasn't all that popular...until fans didn't much care for the Finch run that followed it).  I still want to get around to reading more of it.  It's funny that the origin story is being revisited so much lately. Just goes to prove how neglected the character has been.  If she were as popular as she is important, this would not be happening.

Countdown to QB50 2015: August

18 Days #2 (Graphic India)

• Notable creators: Grant Morrison (writer)
• This second issue jumps into the narrative of the superwar and features a show of respect from the good guys to the bad guys, some of whom turn out to be pretty okay, too.
• Definitely a welcome issue for the project.

ARCHIE #1 (Archie)

• Notable creators: Mark Waid (writer), Fiona Staples (artist)
• I saw that my local shop had it available, so I decided to have a look at this Archie reboot.  The second issue was available at the time.  In hindsight I probably should have just gotten both.
• Waid continues to look better than I've seen in him in years, after this and Strange Fruit.
• Staples (Saga) somehow manages to charm without all the gross-out elements.  Imagine that!

BATMAN #43 (DC)

• Notable creators: Scott Snyder (writer)
• Commissioner Batman (I had another name the last time I talked about it, but I think I like this one better) continues.
• In much more interesting news, Superman stops by, and Alfred discusses how Bruce Wayne came back, and the unlikelihood, at this point, of resuming the crusade.
• Pivotal issue.  Has nothing much to do with Commissioner Batman.

ROBIN: SON OF BATMAN #3 (DC)

• Notable creators: Patrick Gleason (writer/artist)
• Damian's girlfriend, Nobody's daughter Maya, continues to prove to be excellent company for the errant Boy Wonder.
• Talia returns from the dead.
• Deathstroke shows up.
• Seriously, could this series be any better?

BLOODSHOT REBORN #5 (Valiant)

• Notable creators: Jeff Lemire (writer)
• Bloodsquirt, Bloodshot's irritating figment of nanite imagination, surprisingly does an excellent job of moving the story along.
• Like Wolverine before him, Bloodshot has a mysterious past.  This issue he allows someone to read the file that explains who he used to be.  Decides he doesn't want to know what it says.
• Marvel never did figure out how to make Wolverine's past life as interesting as his post-Weapon X days.  This is probably a good decision.

CIVIL WAR #2, 3 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Charles Soule (writer), Leinil Francis Yu (artist)
• I stand by the assertion I made previously that out of all the Secret Wars spin-offs/extensions of past arcs, Soule's Civil War is arguably the most significant.
• Yes, the war continued.  No Captain America did not end up assassinated.  Yes, Spider-Man still has problems stemming from his decisions.  Infiltration is the name of the game on both sides,  
• Then we discover a true game-changer, the presence of a character who did not previously make a Civil War impact: Black Panther.

Between Civil War and Star Wars: Lando, Soule was one of the August standouts, easily.  That was four solid issues from both series for Soule.  I used to dread his Marvel contract.  Now I am really, really happy.  He's doing excellent, relevant, subtle work with both series, and as far as I'm concerned significantly raised his profile.  He's poised to become a major force.

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #13 (Dark Horse)

• Notable creators: Jerry Ordway (artist), Craig Rousseau (artist)
• This anthology title offers a number of stories, including the start of a new chapter in Ordway and Alex de Campi's Semiautomagic.
• My main interest, however, was for Rousseau and Rick Woodall's Kyrra: Alien Jungle Girl, which I got to see in print for the first time, after discovering it digitally from comiXology.

DESCENDER #6 (Image)

• Notable creators: Jeff Lemire (writer)
• Hey, there he is again!  Lemire, along with Charles Soule and Paul Cornell, was a welcome repeat creator.
• Dr. Quon's full story is detailed, as we discover more about Descender itself while he relates exactly how he stole the awesome breakthroughs in robotics that made his name (and cost him an arm).  
• And we meet another Tim!

DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY #3 (IDW)

• Notable creators: Chris Ryall (writer)
• Dirk begins to make actual progress in his investigation.
• (Somehow.)

DOCTOR WHO: FOUR DOCTORS #1, 2, 3 (Titan)

• Notable creators: Paul Cornell (writer)
• The four Doctors in question are David Tennant (Tenth Doctor), Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor) and Peter Capaldi (Twelfth Doctor). 
• Wait, did I say four?  The fourth is John Hurt (War Doctor).
• There are also a bunch of companions running around.  Fans will probably be able to identify them a lot better than I can.
• Even for someone who doesn't have too much experience with the Doctor(s), this is a fun read.

EARTH 2: SOCIETY #3 (DC)

• Notable creators: Daniel H. Wilson (writer)
• Evil mastermind (and one-time Mr. Terrific) Terry Sloan is assassinated!
• Prime suspect: Superman!
• (The other one.)

FABLES #150/FABLES VOL. 22: FAREWELL (Vertigo)

• Notable creators: Bill Willingham (writer)
• The final issue comes in the form of a collection, with the kind of ending Peter Jackson gave his Lord of the Rings.
• As in, a lot of epilogues.
• A little hard for someone who didn't actually, y'know, read the series to fully appreciate, but it's also a heck of a novelty.
• I like novelties.

THE FUSE #13 (Image)

• Notable creators: Antony Johnston (writer), Justin Greenwood (artist)
• The series returns from hiatus for its "Perihelion" arc.
• "Perihelion" means the space station is at its closest to the sun.
• Which means everyone gets crazier than usual.
• Which means plenty of crime for Klem and Marlene to investigate.  Yay!

GRAYSON #10 (DC)

• Notable creators: Tim Seeley (writer), Tom King (writer)
• Guest-stars Lex Luthor, erstwhile member of the Justice League and, oh, the guy who killed Dick Grayson during Forever Evil, which is the event that led to this innovative relaunch.
• Yeah, even if I've failed to read this series regularly, there's no chance I was going to miss that.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #43 (DC)

• Notable creators: Geoff Johns (writer)
• "Darkseid War" continues!
• The Mobius Chair won't tell Batman who the Anti-Monitor is.  The reader knows Anti-Monitor is Mobius.  
• Superman and Lex Luthor have some nice quality time together.
• Up next?  Darkseid versus Anti-Monitor!

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS: WONDER WOMAN, 1, 3 (DC)

• Notable creators: J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Bruce Timm (writer)
• To be clear, what I read here was the Wonder Woman one-shot, plus the first and third issues of the Gods and Monsters event itself.  
• Wonder Woman emerges as the most likable of the alternate Big Three, and hailing from Jack Kirby's New Gods.
• This could be seen as Timm's version of the complicated Man of Steel reality where Superman isn't automatically accepted as a bright shining superhero.  

MIND MGMT #36/NEW MGMT #1 (Dark Horse)

• Notable creators: Matt Kindt (writer/artist)
• This coda to the MIND MGMT saga reads like a blueprint to how to avoid the huge mess the series unraveled.
• And its lingering effects.
• With a big happy, completely unambiguous ending!

MS. MARVEL #17 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: G. Willow Wilson (writer)
• Ms. Marvel meets Captain Marvel!
• Not quite as awesome as the Wolverine team-up.
• (Would that even be possible?)

PREZ #3 (DC)

• Notable creators: Mark Russell (writer), Ben Caldwell
• Corndog Girl begins building her presidential cabinet!
• The blogger reaction to Prez I've read has been considerably less enthusiastic than mine has been.
• For me, this thing is an instant classic, a portrait of our current political cynicism in a satire of what it could lead to.

SPIDER-VERSE #4 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Mike Costa (writer)
• Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, together again at last!
• Sort of!

STAR TREK/GREEN LANTERN #2 (IDW)

• Notable creators: Mike Johnson (writer)
• Again, what could be a horrible gimmick continues to show considerable restraint.
• Uhura (Star Sapphire; best quote of the issue: "Spock!  I need your help, not your analysis!)), Chekov (Blue Lantern), Gorn warrior (Red Lantern), Chang (Sinestro Corps), Romulan politican (Orange Lantern), and Bones (Indigo Tribe) are all inspired crossover choices.  
• Sinestro shows up on the last page.  
• Larfleeze is featured on the cover next issue.
• Seriously.  Good fun!

STAR WARS #8 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Jason Aaron (writer), Stuart Immonen (artist)
• Seriously, Immonen begins art duties on Star Wars, and you thought I wouldn't be there?
• The big story in this Marvel series is the appearance of Sana Solo, the apparent wife of Han Solo.
• Guess who vigorously denies that throughout this issue?
• Immonen is a perfect fit, by the way.

STAR WARS: LANDO #2, 3 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Charles Soule (writer), Alex Maleev (artist)
• By the second issue, we may know why Lobot is considerably less animated in The Empire Strikes Back than Soule presents him here.
• The Emperor's Imperial Guard (the dudes in read) in action!
• Chanath Cha continues his efforts to prove he's as awesome a bounty hunter as Boba Fett.
• Lando discovers what the reader already knows: that Palpatine is steeped in Sith lore.

SUPERMAN #43 (DC)

• Notable creators: Gene Luen Yang (writer), John Romita, Jr. (artist)
• This is it!  Lois Lane reveals Superman's secret identity to the world!
• She does it so that Hordr can no longer bribe Superman.
• It's a big, big moment, obviously.
• In this continuity, it makes perfect sense.
• Yang even makes a connection to Grant Morrison's Action Comics run.
• Where, you'll remember, Superman himself briefly "killed" Clark Kent.
• Probably will be endlessly debated.  But we already had a tidy wedding in previous continuity.  In this one, there are fewer certainties.  This is a good thing.  Allows the mythos to breathe.

THIS DAMNED BAND #1 (Dark Horse)

• Notable creators: Paul Cornell (writer)
• Seeing this listed in Previews originally, I didn't know how much I should be interested in it.  Besides Cornell...?
• But it reminds me that I have a considerable history at this point reading comics that involve rock n' roll: Night Trippers, the Brian Wilson issue of Hawkeye, Mysterious Strangers, Comeback, even a Prince comic...
• So this is kind of...destiny.

Cornell, meanwhile, more than earns being in the spotlight, between This Damned Band and Doctor Who: Four Doctors.  And I'm happy to see so much material from him.  From Captain Britain to Knight & Squire to Saucer Country to his Lex Luthor arc in Action Comics and even Demon Knights, Cornell carved out a considerable legacy for himself, and I always hoped he'd take his rightful place within the comics elite.  But wide success always eluded him, and he became the opposite of the famed British Invasion, in that he went back home.  Went all British.  Returned to one of his true loves, the very British but expanding Doctor Who.  I'm glad I've now had the opportunity to experience Cornell's Doctor interest first-hand, and to find something new from him, too.  Welcome back!

THE UNWRITTEN: APOCALYPSE #12 (Vertigo)

• Notable creators: Mike Carey (writer)
• I finally had the chance to read the conclusion to Carey's Unwritten saga.
• To my mind, much more satisfying than Fables'.
• Fables, in part, by the way, circled around to an allusion to Harry Potter.
• Unwritten, meanwhile, was perhaps the most clever Harry allusion anyone's yet produced.

Four more months left in the year.  Miller and Azarello will be launching The Dark Knight III in November.  Gaiman's Sandman: Overture is ending.  Morrison is launching Klaus.  And I'm sure there are plenty of highlights yet remaining.  This has been a pretty good year.

Quarter Bin 68 "Grant Morrison, etc."

This is a back issue feature, which features all these this edition: The Filth #6, Green Lantern (1990) #1 and 46, Green Lantern Corps #38, The Helmet of Fate: Zauriel #1, The Invisibles #6, Justice League America #74, JLA Classified #45, JSA #81, Legion of Super-Heroes #0, Marvels #1, The Mighty #1, Millennium #5, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #3, Starman #46, Adventures of Superman Annual #5, All Star Superman #1 and 5, Sweet Tooth #13, Tangent: Superman's Reign #12, Wisdom #1, and New X-Men #149.

The Filth #6 (Vertigo)
From 2002.

I have previously owned the entire Filth collection.  When I purged a vast amount of my things two years ago, this and Supergods didn't survive, despite my professed great admiration for Grant Morrison.  There are limits to everything.  When I originally read the complete Filth, I was in a different place.  I was still in the midst of figuring out what exactly it was I liked about Morrison.  Turns out, I like it best when he's not trying so hard to be weird.  Stuff like this and his current Nameless are definitely Morrison trying hard to be weird.  And the thing about Filth is even when I reread this particular issue, I had some thoughts about what helped make it seem less like Morrison trying hard to be weird, but now I've forgotten.  So again I'll walk away from it and not wonder whether I'm missing something crucial.  I guess it's supposed to be social commentary, and not necessarily about, well, filth, and maybe how some people really do try too hard.  And so maybe Morrison took on Filth in full irony.  I think I read once that it is or was his personal favorite, and at one point I described it myself as possibly the Invisibles experience condensed...Still, obviously personally, I've backed off from it, and I think Morrison has done a lot of stuff since then that's far superior, not just Joe the Barbarian and Annihilator, but...I mean, even Seven Soldiers is in some ways Filth repackaged.  Made better.  Moving on...

Green Lantern #1 (DC)
From 1990.

It seems odd to think today that Hal Jordan ever had a problem being the headlining Green Lantern act.  I mean, other than everyone who wants the cinematic Green Lantern to be John Stewart (mostly because of the animated Justice League adventures where he was).  And yet there was a considerable period where Green Lantern had in fact been retitled Green Lantern Corps, and this particular reboot was all about Hal taking back the spotlight.  It was also the debut of the white temple look, which Geoff Johns later retconned as the first indication of Parallax taking control.  The Hal in this issue is drawn directly from the Green Lantern/Green Arrow era.  I mean, Hal was regularly depicted as bucking authority and reluctant to be a good little Green Lantern, which was the whole reason Guy Gardner and John Stewart had rings to begin with, but this was making it not just a phase, but a defining part of his character.  Sticking around, being Green Lantern, and still fretting about all that.  And this was the beginning of the modern era, too.  The franchise was in fact about to begin.  Guy and John both got their own ongoing series before long, and they were in this issue to assert their continuing presence from the start.  And to think, fifty issues in and everything would change...

Green Lantern #46 (DC)
From 1993.

I don't know who decided to begin a new Green Lantern on the heels of Superman's big death-and-return saga, but they were a genius.  How often does that happen, linking one such event to another, however tangentially?  Mongul and Cyborg Superman incidentally destroy Coast City at the end of "Reign of the Supermen," which is Hal's city, and it drops him off the deep end.  In this issue, it looks like he might be able to get over it.  He gets his revenge on Mongul, he's the one who gets to defeat the other major villain of the big Superman climax.  And it still ends up resulting in "Emerald Twilight," the end of Green Lantern as it had existed as a property since the dawn of the Silver Age...and yeah, eventually, Hal's big redemption and the return of everything, supersized...But at this point, the next issue is the last Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up (in its original combination; strangely even upon Hal's return it's never happened again).  To me, this moment has always stood as about as iconic as "Emerald Twilight" itself.  The original Green Lantern trade collections of that time never included it.  There were separate "Emerald Twilight" and "New Dawn" (the start of the Kyle Rayner era), and then "Emerald Twilight"/"New Dawn" collections.  And this major component of the story was left out.  Every time.  I don't know, did the "Reign of the Supermen" collections include it?

Green Lantern Corps #38 (DC)
From 2009.

This is from the Tomasi/Gleason era that kicked off the series, the best non-Johns Green Lantern comics from that time, and enhanced in hindsight by their later collaboration in Batman and Robin, which was a definite amplification of their efforts.  So good, in fact, that I tend to forget what their GLC was actually like, other than the distinctive presence of Soranik Natu (this issue she tries to erase her just as distinctive face tattoo because it's a constant reminder of her father...Sinestro).  The Guardians are ramping up to going totally insane, executing bad guys, with the Corps somehow having a problem with that.  But it's that cover that is the best thing about the issue.  Not totally relevant to the contents, but it's strong Pat Gleason all the same, before Gleason truly came into his own (again, Batman and Robin).  It's not my favorite cover from this selection of back issues, however.  We'll get to that.

The Helmet of Fate: Zauriel #1 (DC)
From 2007)

This was a part of the late Steve Gerber's last big project, an attempted reboot of Doctor Fate.  Gerber's legacy will arguably always be Howard the Duck, which luckily these days once again means a good thing.  I read the complete Helmet of Fate at the time of its original publication, so it was good to revisit.  Zauriel was one of the less obscure characters featured in this kind of condensed Seven Soldiers (the issue recaps every other encounter to that point, which was actually the last before the intended big payoff).  Zauriel was a Grant Morrison creation from the pages of JLA, a literal angel, a surrogate Hawkman (several reboot attempts from that period had soured that particular character, who would need a dramatic comeback within Geoff Johns' JSA in order to become relevant again), and his story is ably recapped in the issue as well.  He got a new incarnation in the New 52 in the pages of Phantom Stranger, but it's not quite the same.

The Invisibles #6 (Vertigo)
From 1994.

You know what's ironic?  Every time I randomly come across a back issue of Invisibles, it's always from the Say You Want a Revolution collection, the first volume of the series.  And that's awful, in a way, because Say You Want includes the most of what I've read from one of Grant Morrison's early seminal works.  And darn it if I don't want to read something else from it!

Maybe there's a message in that?

In the meantime, I'll instead talk here about the On the Ledge feature in the back of the issue, the Vertigo press page that speaks about the Paradox Press experiment, which today is known, if for anything at all, for Road to Perdition, which later became a Tom Hanks movie.  But this hype feature also references Jerome Charyn in Paradox Press's stable of writers.  Years later, Charyn became a favorite writer of mine, and it amused me to learn that he sometimes dabbles in comics, and apparently, so I learned here, he was in fact part of the Paradox Press experiment.  The result was published in 1995, Family Man.  I will read that at some point.

Justice League America #74 (DC)
From 1993.

This issue is the reason there are fans who think Bloodwynd was in fact Martian Manhunter all along.  That's because at the end of the issue, that's exactly what it seems like.  Apparently all those fans never read the next issue, which explains what's really going on (maybe comics just shouldn't try and confuse readers so often...).  Bloodwynd's always been a favorite of mine.  He's the Dan Jurgens creation not named Booster Gold, and for my mine, infinitely more fascinating.  And yet he's got a scant publishing history, and it was Grant Morrison himself who explained why in the pages of Supergods, calling him a example of the worst the '90s had to offer.  But then Morrison himself dragged Bloodwynd back into comics in the pages of The Multiversity.

And you want to know the saddest thing about Bloodwynd?  This is his only spotlight cover, and you can't even see his face!  Okay, that's a total lie.  That face is splashed across Justice League America #88.  But still!  I've said all along, he's a great character.  Time to help everyone else realize that, I say.

JLA Classified #45 (DC)
From 2007.

Speaking of Martian Manhunter, this is my favorite cover from this selection, and it was instantly one of my favorites at the time of its original publication, too.  The contents are pretty good, part of the "Ghosts of Mars" arc that was part of the foundation of the character becoming one of my all-times favorites.  The material at that time was the strongest in the character's history.  And it's absolutely, so far as I'm concerned, the basis for the new ongoing series.

JSA #81 (DC)
From 2005.

This is pretty far into Geoff Johns' JSA, but I figure if it's before the Justice Society of America reboot (where I read every issue), but it's a good issue to randomly read because it puts Stargirl, Courtney Whitmore, in the spotlight, who was also the first character Johns ever wrote for DC, in the pages of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.  The issue, in fact, delves deeply into Stargirl's world, so it's almost a complete reprise/update of the prior series, so all around it's a nice one to have chosen (there were several others available), if not randomly sampling one of Johns' formative arcs (I've done that; it's not as easy to be satisfied that way) then to definitely catch it at its best.

Legion of Super-Heroes #0 (DC)
From 1994.

One of my ambitions is to own the complete Stuart Immonen Superman.  I'd planned to chronicle the run here at Comics Reader, but I don't have that kind of readership, alas.  Anyway, Immonen made his mark at DC, originally, within the pages of Legion, and he was suited to that in the original clean look he had at this time in his career, before he talked himself, or allowed others to talk him, into a busier look.  I sampled the Legion books (including Legionnaires) a lot during that time, and I'm certain now that I had this in my collection (until an earlier purge than the one referenced above), so I had already begun appreciating Immonen before I realized it.  But I didn't stick around Legion, so I in fact officially discovered Immonen in the pages of Superman comics.  Just so you don't wonder, I don't intend to track down the complete Immonen Legion, too...

Marvels #1 (Marvel)
From 1993.

One of the most famous comics of the '90s, this was also the epitome of Marvel's self-mythologizing, not just a character, but its entire line, the fictional version of Stan Lee, as it were.  I've always wanted to read it.  The first issue, it turns out, is not wildly impressive.  Photographer Phil Sheldon is a wimpy lead character, not exactly the Norman McCay of Kingdom Come.  Devised to be an everyman observing Marvel's giants from street level, Phil Sheldon is instead a Jimmy Olsen/Peter Parker who otherwise has nothing interesting going for him, just a random romance.  Yes, there are three other issues to the story, but I'm not as interested, now, to read the rest of the story.  The depictions of Namor, the Human Torch, and Captain America are a mixed bag.  The Human Torch is easily the superhero who comes off best.  But if later superheroes are treated more like Namor, who blows up the realism of the approach, it kind of ruins the concept.  And anyway, it was as much if not more so the art of Alex Ross that made Marvels such a sensation.

Curiously, Marvels, other than the stories of mini-series of Jeph Loeb (incredibly, Captain America: White is finally, finally on the publishing schedule, with a September debut, after the preview released in...2008), remains the lone example of Marvel taking an actual sober approach to superheroes.  Other than random issues of Ed Brubaker's Captain America, further examples just don't exist.  And that's why I'm a DC guy.

The Mighty #1 (DC)
From 2009.

Until Batman and Robin, this was my first indication that Peter Tomasi would be a truly exceptional writer.  The Mighty is one of those rare creator-owned projects published under the DC banner (Chris Claremont's Sovereign Seven was another...and I can't think of a third), and it's also one of the best alternate Superman stories ever told.  Curiously, at the time there was considerable competition.  Mark Waid's Irredeemable was one, and The Life and Times of Savior 28, from J.M. DeMatteis, was the other.  Yet The Mighty jumped out from the pack.  There was talk of a movie adaptation.  IDW later put out the trade collection.  Turns out from this revisit, it really stands up.  So next time I have an opportunity to pick up the complete collection, I just might...

Millennium #5 (DC)
From 1987.

This was the Manhunters event, the third big DC crossover event after Crisis On Infinite Earths and Legends.  But as I now realize, maybe it was also an attempt to capitalize on the New Age guru sensation, because that's what's going on in this particular issue, and it confuses me, otherwise, a great deal, to see that going on in the middle of a big DC crossover event.  And so even though it's the big Manhunters event that helped establish them, I've probably read about all I need to from it, I really have.  Because it's baffling.  I guess I perhaps should have known how confusing it was, because I already knew Millennium featured the big Manhunters story as a story of infiltration.  Which otherwise, conceptually, makes little sense in Manhunters context.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #3 (Vertigo)
From 2005.

As the title suggests, this is a Neil Gaiman story, actually an adaption of his first novel, the career shift that helped establish him as a cultural phenomenon.  Comic books fans will always consider Gaiman's legacy unquestionably to be Sandman, but readers at large, and movie audiences, wouldn't know him unless he'd made the transition to prose.  It wasn't until American Gods, arguably, that he had his true breakthrough.  I remember when Neverwhere was released.  I never got around to reading it myself, so I figured sampling the comic book adaption might give me an idea what it was like.  And I guess it's really obvious that Gaiman hadn't yet shaken himself out of the comic book mode, because if this issue of this adaptation is any indication, he wasn't quite ready yet.  It's too busy, too unfocused.  The main character becomes lost in the shuffle.  In Sandman, the main character was always lost in the shuffle, and in that context, it made absolute sense.  But Gaiman eventually figured out that in books, the rules are different.  Unless you've got something to say creatively.  With Neverwhere, I don't think he did.

Starman #46 (DC)
From 1998.

Starman is another thing I want to read in total at some point, ideally catching up with the rest of the omnibus collections (I've read the fifth volume) because James Robinson provides extensive commentaries in those.  I picked this issue at random because it was a "Times Past" issue, so there was no chance of catching a story midstream, and because "Times Past," as well as the "Conversations with David" issues, was one of the best things about the series, the reasoning behind which is actually explain in this issue's letters column.  Although of note is acknowledging original artist Tony Harris's departure from the series.  He later collaborated with Brian K. Vaughan on Ex Machina, and Robinson managed to muscle his way through the rest of the series even though it got progressively less fun as, well, time passed.  Because this issue also acknowledges the death of original editor and DC icon Archie Goodwin, who was also the reason the series happened at all.  So this was an excellent random issue to sample.

Adventures of Superman Annual #5 (DC)
From 1993.

From the Bloodlines event that attempted to present an entire new generation of superheroes, perhaps rightly criticized, so I later discovered, as trying desperately to cash in on the budding Image phenomenon.  But I found a bunch of characters I loved from it, including Sparx, who would go on to costar in Superboy and the Ravers, one of my all-time favorite comic books.  What's fascinating about Sparx, and was hardly capitalized on outside of this debut, is that she comes from a whole family of metahumans, who apparently needed to activate their powers (presumably no two alike).  Donna Carol "D.C." Force somewhat rashly, along with the dubious consent of her Uncle Harry, chooses the alien parasites going around activating new superheroes during Bloodlines.  Also in this issue is Superboy, and this is actually at the end of the "Reign of the Supermen," literally, apparently taking place just before the final battle with Cyborg Superman.

But as much as I love Sparx, the most amusing thing in this issue is an add for Zero Hour way, way in advance.  I mean, Superboy didn't even have his own series yet, and Superboy #8 was released the month every DC title started interacting with the event.  Moving on...

All Star Superman #1 and 5 (DC)
From 2006.

Wait, they sold me a FCBD release?  Unscrupulous merchants!  Actually, that's pretty common in the back issue trade, alas.  Anyway, this is what is commonly considered one of Grant Morrison's definite works.  And I liked it just fine at the time (in the annual QB50s, it went from 12 to 37 to 17 from 2006-2008, always playing second-fiddle to Geoff Johns' Action Comics, among other material).

What strikes me about it now, especially All Star Superman #5, which ties in with what I'll be talking about a few comics later (the last one, in fact, to assure you that this is not an infinite list of nonsense), is how Morrison handles the villain, who in this case is Lex Luthor.  The whole idea behind All Star Superman was to create an iconic, and perhaps to say definitive, version of the Superman mythos.  Which makes this Lex Luthor all the more interesting.  This Lex is strictly interested in his Superman obsession because he sees himself as a world-conqueror Superman has blocked from fulfilling his ambitions.  I'm not sure how I should feel about that.  I like nuanced characters.  I love Geoff Johns' Lex Luthor in the pages of Justice League.  This is not that Lex.  He's in fact about as brilliant as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's eponymous villain, with clear holes in his logic and not nearly as threatening as he seems.  Which is to say, all bark and no bite.  Where Morrison's Superman is meant to be exactly the all-powerful Superman that everyone has always the character is and therefore completely unrelatable...his Lex is in fact all but the exact opposite.

Which is actually kind of fascinating, when you think about it...I've never reread the complete All Star Superman.  That could be interesting.

It's also worth noting that the issue also features a promo section for a WildStorm reboot, the one that Morrison was supposed to be a significant part of, writing both WildCATs and The Authority.  I know Keith Giffen ended up writing the latter almost immediately.  The WildCATs experiment was even more brief.  I didn't even remember about that one.  There was also a Garth Ennis Midnighter series.  Which surprisingly didn't really catch on.  You'd think it would somehow be completely natural.  But this was pretty much the end of WildStorm, so maybe the whole thing fizzling out isn't so surprising after all.

Sweet Tooth #13 (Vertigo)
From 2010.

This was one of Jeff Lemire's early signature works, along with the earlier Essex County.  I remember when it launched, and it was impossible for me to think of it as anything other than the comic featuring the boy with the antlers.  I never read it.  Later, I finally did come to appreciate Lemire's brilliance (Descender), so I figured I'd finally sample Sweet Tooth.  Turns out it's pretty interesting.  Not having gotten into it originally, I really had no idea what the boy was doing having those antlers.  Turns out it's a little like the second season of Dark Angel, a TV series I happen to love a great deal.  I don't know if Lemire had Dark Angel in mind, or The Island of Dr. Moreau, or something else I don't currently know about.  Either way, I guess this is to say, I really ought to read more Lemire.

Tangent: Superman's Reign #12 (DC)
From 2009.

Convergence brought back a lot of old concepts and eras, and I was happy to see Tangent Comics among them.  This was an idea from the '90s that sought to recapture the feel of the dawn of the Silver Age (and, I guess, Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating...) by taking familiar names and reimagining them.  I loved it.  When it was revisited in the pages of Tangent: Superman's Reign, I loved it all over again, even though there was a significant attempt to broaden the appeal by bringing in the more familiar versions to sort everything out.  Since the writer is Dan Jurgens, it features somewhat blunt storytelling, not exactly what you might have seen out of Tangent Superman in the pages of Convergence: The Flash (if you even knew clue one about Tangent Superman to begin with).  I don't remember reading the conclusion to the mini-series originally.  Although I didn't really miss much, other than the sacrifice of Tangent Batman. #sadpanda

Wisdom #1 (Marvel)
From 2006.

Paul Cornell's Captain Britain and MI13 was one of the series that made me a fan of Marvel (the other was Incredible Hercules) for a few years, just something with a vibe I'd never seen from the company before.  It made me an immediate fan of Cornell, who I was happy to later read within the pages of Action Comics and Knight & Squire, not to mention Saucer Country.  Then he went back to things more British-centric, like Doctor Who.  Wisdom, as in Pete Wisdom, was Captain Britain's predecessor, with a sterling reputation but otherwise something I knew nothing about.  I assumed it was a story about Pete Wisdom.  But as it turns out, it's basically as deliberate a predecessor to Captain Britain as you can get, the exact same approach with only a variation of the cast of characters.  So I guess I didn't miss anything wildly different.  The other notable thing about Wisdom is artist Trevor Hairsine, whom I later enjoyed in the pages of Divinity.  That's worth noting about Wisdom.

New X-Men #149 (Marvel)
From 2003.

And now we've reached the end.  While discussing The Filth, I discussed that I have a more complicated history with Grant Morrison than it can sometimes seem.  While discussing All Star Superman I was able to get into a little of how I don't necessarily always agree with his creative choices even when I don't find them particularly weird.

And here's where I concede a point to Marvel.  Maybe they weren't wrong to retcon Morrison's X-Men run.  This issue is late in the run and is just after Xorn, the mutant healer, was revealed to be Magneto all along.  Morrison's Magneto is little different from Morrison's Lex Luthor.  They're both evil.  End of story.  In fact, as of this issue Magneto has all but won.  Like he does in Final Crisis, which is far different context but also wildly unpopular with fans, Morrison writes a story in which the bad guy manages to win.  Whereas the story in comics never really advances, the X-Men in particular have tended to be stagnant (except when House of M forced them to advance to a more ludicrous point than even Morrison managed), so to see New X-Men reach a point like this must have been disconcerting to Marvel, not because Morrison revealed Xorn to be someone else all along, regardless of who that was, but because of what happened next.

Morrison's last X-Men arc was "Here Comes Tomorrow," his version of "Days of Future Past," presenting an outcome fraught with mutants everywhere.  Yes, the mutants "win," but at great cost.  This is the opposite of what he'd done with JLA, the model by which he'd been brought in with great fanfare.  Except Morrison always goes for what he sees as the big picture, and his big picture is just about bigger than anyone's except maybe Geoff Johns.  So having him do X-Men was probably a mistake to begin with, if Marvel wanted something more safe than it turned out to be.

And putting all that aside, back to Tony level, yes I had become a fan of Grant Morrison through JLA, like a lot of other fans, but when I had to break from comics at the start of the millennium, I found it difficult to get back into him, once I started reading again.  I remember seeing New X-Men on the stands when I started wading back in 2004, and although I knew what was going on, I didn't want to read it.  Even when Morrison helped kick off JLA Classified, I skipped that, too.  I only came back with Seven Soldiers, and then in a very big way.  Once I understood that Morrison's scope was bigger than anyone else's, at the time, I gave him the time of day.  And I've rarely been disappointed since.

Reading Comics #133 "Bull Moose Bargains"

As you may recall, I was enjoying bargain grab bags from local entertainment franchise Bull Moose, until I learned they weren't doing them anymore.  But they didn't stop carrying comics outright (but I haven't gotten a chance to check in a few weeks, so I don't know what the prospects look like now).  Instead they started sticking their discounted comics in one of those old-fashioned spinning racks, so I now had the opportunity to select exactly what I wanted (from the available titles, of course).  Some of them were the same 2013 leftovers I'd find in some of the grab bags, and some of them were new releases (did they know???), all of them marked at fifty cents.  For the first of two trips in this new configuration to date, I scooped up nine titles.  And those were:

Astro City #10 (Vertigo)
When this series was relaunched last year, I was part of the I-don't-know-how-large contingent of fans who was happy to see it return.  The last time the title was in print it was the extended Dark Age arc, which apparently bothered long-term readers, but was at least a version of something creator Kurt Busiek had been intending to do ever since Marvels (twenty years ago).  I've never read Marvels, a giant love letter to (as you may have guess) Marvel history which quickly became known as painter Alex Ross's breakout project (some argue best work, but I hold that for Kingdom Come, which is the one he clearly drew on for the later Earth X comics).  Ross has done every Astro City cover since it launched in 1995 (so! Busiek wasted little time!), and Brent Anderson has been the interior artist.  This is a hardcore nostalgia comic in the Alan Moore tradition, with Busiek versions of pretty much every major superhero.  Did it really take this long for him to get around to a Winged Victory spotlight?  Winged Victory, you understand, is his Wonder Woman.  The story takes off of the Infinite Crisis era of controversy surrounding DC's Amazon taking the life of Maxwell Lord.  In fairness to Busiek, he does craft his pastiches into fairly distinctive variations, so that you don't necessarily have to be thinking WonderWomanWonderWomanWonderWoman while reading this issue (if you so choose).  It's a Winged Victory story, even if you know how Busiek reached this point.  All that being said, I cooled on the whole thing pretty quickly.  I keep wanting him to grab the brass ring, go for the gusto, but Busiek is determined to take a relaxed pace.  These are comics for Silver Age fans (early Silver Age, the lens of what would follow refracted through the 1950s).  Originally Astro City was one of the most acclaimed comics around, but even other readers don't seem as excited about it these days.  Good to have it around again, though.

Kick-Ass 3 #8 (Icon)
The big surprise was this conclusion to the Kick-Ass saga, begun in 2008.  I read the early issues, but lost track of it along the way, after it became a movie phenomenon I inexplicably still haven't seen (despite active interests in the careers of both Jim Carrey, featured in the second one, and Chloe Grace Moretz, whose whole career happened thanks to Hit-Girl).  It might have to do with the fact that the writer is Mark Millar, and for a time I kind of soured on him, not so much because of anything he'd done, but because of things Grant Morrison said.  Morrison and Millar used to be bosom buddies, but they had a creative falling-out, and Morrison subsequently expressed the kind of opinions about his former friend that, well, Alan Moore routinely spouts about Morrison himself.  (Guys!  Guys!  Can't we all just get along?)  Comics Reader readers know I've recently turned the corner on Millar thanks to Starlight, so I was more than ready to read how he ended Kick-Ass.  It seems to be exactly the way it should have, and that's fine.  The art of John Romita, Jr. remains integral to the whole experience.  Romita moved on to Superman with Geoff Johns immediately after concluding this saga, and of course I'm definitely there for that experience.  In this sudden Millar- and Romita-heavy season for my comics experience, it was fitting to catch their mutual landmark as it happened.

The New 52: Futures End #10 (DC)
Contrary to my own expectations, Futures End still hasn't become a new version of my beloved 52 experience.  I'm still keeping tabs on it (the Masked Superman was recently revealed to be Shazam, if you wanted to know), and of course September this year is a whole month dedicated to the event otherwise chronicled in the weekly series, with DC's line decked out in special issues looking at the futures of their stars.  Masked Superman Before He Was Unmasked has encounter with Lois Lane this issue, which is otherwise highlighted by (Big) Barda being asked to suit up again.  Undeniably awesome moment.  Barda is the Wonder Woman of the New Gods.  Come to think of it, I have no idea why there haven't been more Barda/Wonder Woman stories.  Somebody fix that, please?

Saga #21 (Image)
On the opposite side of my recent Astro City experience is Saga.  I lost track of both series over the course of the last year, but returning to Saga was to remember how much I love it.  In the current comics, Brian K. Vaughan is finally putting the spotlight on the Robot Kingdom.  Prince Robot IV (such a deceptively simple, awesome name; I'm a man of uncomplicated pleasures sometimes) has had a baby, and that baby has been kidnapped by a disgruntled Robot Kingdom janitor.  Alana and Marko are still in the thick of their soap opera (call it what it is) otherwise.  I'm once again addicted.

Superman/Wonder Woman #6 (DC)
I don't know if you remember, but I was wild about this series when it launched.  I thought it was a brilliant idea, long-in-coming for Wonder Woman to get a second ongoing series of any form (and now she has a third, thanks to the digital-first Sensation Comics), and it also happened to have part of the early comic crush I've developed over Charles Soule (who unfortunately has recently signed an exclusive contract with...Marvel).  This issue is one of the periodic General Zod stories DC loves to do, these inspired by the Man of Steel version Michael Shannon embodied more than Terrence Stamp in Superman II (but there have been lots of versions over the years).  Zod is presented as a formidable foe.  In fact, Superman/Wonder Woman in general seems to love thrusting its love birds in epic battles they can only hope to survive (although of course they will), valuing their link as warriors, a bond only they can truly experience together (which is the whole point of the relationship).  The art is from Tony Daniel, whom I've greatly admired since his "Batman R.I.P." days, and whose work continues to evolve.  He may epitomize what some fans have called the "New 52 house style," which basically folds around Jim Lee's work.  For a brief moment it seemed as if Daniel had in fact begun to pattern himself pretty directly on Lee, but as I said, this issue is proof that he's still in flux.  This is a good thing.  I still have great hope for his career.  Given the right project, his budding interests as a writer-artist could cement a real legacy.  Next project in that regard is the forthcoming Deathstroke relaunch (which I will be rooting for, obviously).

Trinity of Sin: Pandora #2 (DC)
Ever since it became clear that the New 52 was launching with the secret lynchpin of a new character (who looks like part of the WildStorm legacy that officially became a part of DC canon at that time), I began rooting for Pandora to become an important, lasting creation.  This is a work in progress.  When she got her own book last year, I was rooting for that, too, but kept looking for a way in after I missed the launch.  Well, now I've finally read an issue, just in time for a forthcoming relaunch where the character and her Trinity of Sin cohorts (Phantom Stranger, Question) fold in together under the single, unspecified banner (it could certainly be worse!).  I think this is a good thing.  A character like Pandora kind of needs context.  She was built for context.  Unless someone literally spends a year or more exploring her own story, sending Pandora on random adventures will do her no favors at all.  This issue is a tie-in with "Trinity War," a Justice League crossover event that was supposed to be a big deal but kind of wasn't, a culmination of everything the New 52 was meant to accomplish to that point.  (Failure?  There are fans who've wanted the New 52 to be a failure from the start.  Is this how fans were after Crisis On Infinite Earths?  I hope not!)  The strongest element of the issue is its use of Vandal Savage.  Someone other than Ray Fawkes might have really played that up.  Fawkes is one of the writers who've benefited from the revised creative landscape DC has sought to establishment, and he's one I really haven't formed an impression of, so I hope this isn't completely indicative of his work.  I'd like to see better.

Wolverine #4 (Marvel)
Ah, Paul Cornell.  He's one of those writers who became an instant favor a few years back, and I became a loyal reader for a good long while.  But I wonder if he hasn't lost the thread of what interested him in writing comics along the way.  He's also known for his work with Doctor Who, and as an author.  And also for not really sticking around any one comic book project for long.  Maybe that's why I stopped trying to keep track, or found I didn't care when he started on Wolverine.  I kept almost checking out the run, but never quite doing it.  He's the writer who set up the Death of Wolverine event that...Charles Soule is finishing.  So I finally checked it out.  And...I really don't think I've missed anything.  Sorry, Paul.  Doesn't seem to be among your best.  When Cornell is at his best he's among the best.  So that's why I've been disappointed.

Wonder Woman #23 (DC)
If I hadn't gotten so horribly behind, I'd've been a loyal fan of the whole Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang run on this series, which is about to end.  It's brilliant, easily one of the best things that's ever happened to Wonder Woman, and for one of the biggest characters in comics.  This issue is part of the First Born arc.  First Born is a new villain to the mythos, part of the September 2013 Villains Month one-shot line-up and everything.  The one thing that can be held against the Azzarello Wonder Woman is that it feels completely disconnected from the rest of the DC landscape (which, I'm convinced, is half the reason Superman/Wonder Woman happened), and why First Born didn't at all become a household name.  I mean, H'El over in the Scott Lobdell Superman comics from around the same time had a better shot.  Wonder Woman from this era will become known for its particular context.  To read one issue is to read any issue, in some respects.  It's all one continuous story.  (Although I will be contradicting this gross simplification next time I talk about it, which is another tie-in to how Superman/Wonder Woman happened.)  This is a good thing.  I'm already hoping for a Azzarello/Chiang reprise somewhere down the line, an epic mini-series or even crossover event.  Hey, I can dream!

All-New X-Men #24 (Marvel)
This is another series I was once completely hot on but cooled over as time wore on.  This is the Brian Michael Bendis/Stuart Immonen series that spun out of AvX and famously sports the gimmick of having the original, youthful X-Men time-displaced to the present.  I'm about as all over the place with Bendis as I am with a handful of other creators.  He's kind of the Marvel equivalent, for me, of Scott Snyder in some respects.  When I love his work, I think he's brilliant.  But he's not always engaged in ways I think benefit what he's doing.  This issue is all about how he's reached that point again.  I thought the time-displaced heroes would be gone by now.  I really have no idea why they're still around.  In the early issues, All-New X-Men seemed primed to introduce a whole new generation of mutant heroes.  I don't know if I've simply missed that whole development, or if it's been abandoned, delayed, whatever.  That's what I think the series ought to be doing.  And as always, I want Immonen to be doing work that's far less busy.  He's the pen-and-ink version of Alex Ross at his best.  At Marvel he's simply never been given a chance to express that side of his work.  Maybe he's fine with that.  But for me, the same with Bendis, I'm...disappointed.  Bendis and Immonen could indeed be a dynamite combination.  But not this way.  Anyway, "The Trial of Jean Grey Part 5 of 6."  Blah blah blah, "Dark Phoenix Saga," I-can't-believe-we-didn't-remain-innocent-forever, forcing an unnecessary Guardians of the Galaxy connection.  (I never really got why the X-Men ever had to have anything to do with space.  Basically the complete opposite of what makes them relevant.)

Next time, fewer comics.  That's all I can promise...

Quick Hits: Saucer Country #10, 11, 12 (Vertigo)

Saucer Country was announced as canceled, and so these are some of the final issues.  Writer Paul Cornell has vowed to bring it back somehow somewhere, though in my experience this doesn't usually happen, although it happens most often in comics, and the only reason why I would still doubt this vow is that Cornell is known best of all for having a fairly short attention span.  He doesn't stick around any series for long.

Still Saucer Country was a favorite of mine, and Cornell is a favorite of mine, so I will savor it and both as much as I can.

The tenth issue is a lot more of the same, very serialized material that advances the basic quagmire of running an election and trying to figure out whether aliens are real or not, all the characters talking about and being frightened out of their minds that what they think isn't just a delusion.

The eleventh issue is another of those amusing digressions into conspiracy lore that Cornell spent the middle run of the series exploring.  This time, for some reason, it's about fairies, which is another layer of how the series has explored its central themes and works far better than you might think.

The twelfth issue is dominated by Professor Kidd, who has been doing most of the practical investigating for Governor Alvarado, and has been struggling the most, mostly because he's been experiencing what he's determined to be an ongoing set of delusions, like Grant Morrison's Happy! with a less happy outcome.  Or so it currently seems.

Saucer Country #6, 7, 8 and 9 (Vertigo)

writer: Paul Cornell
artist: Jimmy Broxton (#6), Ryan Kelly (regular)

(via vertigocomics.com)

The news recently came down the pike that Saucer Country has been cancelled.  There are probably a number of really good reasons why this happened, the most of them being low sales, and perhaps another that some of the target audience assumed things like The X-Files already covered this same material effectively enough.  There's also the problem that the book itself never seemed to click for readers, as any successful Vertigo series should, develop a cult audience either of fans or critics.

I came to Saucer Country because of my great respect for Paul Cornell, developed over the course of Captain Britain and MI:13, Action Comics, and Knight & Squire.  I've seen him become one of my favorite comic book writers.  When the New 52 came around for DC, he launched both Demon Knights and Stormwatch.  Notably, neither was a leading property, and both very much versions of the team book he did with Captain Britain.  Only Demon Knights seemed to tap into the rich mythological vein running through Cornell's best work, however.  He was off Stormwatch quickly enough, and his uncelebrated Knights was given to someone else, too.  Part of this is that Cornell doesn't stick around any one series for very long, and he'll soon be writing Wolverine, and this is not a time where a writer can write for both DC and Marvel at the same time.  I thought Saucer Country would stick around.

Yet I'm pretty sure its end has mostly nothing to do with the Marvel business.  I never found other readers as eager about this series as I was, and even though who sampled it seemed more confused than anything, which is a reaction I can sympathize with.  Other than lead character Arcadia Alvarez, I still can't remember anyone else's name.  The series does have a distinctive cast of characters, but they're important so far as how they relate to Arcadia and the general plot, not so much in themselves.  Arcadia's ex-husband, or the staff researcher who does her investigating...I quickly determined that Saucer Country would reward loyalty, and as of the issues in this review, it does so much more than that.  But first it had to prove that loyalty was worth it, and I think many readers decided early that it wasn't.

The basic plot of the series is that Arcadia Alvarez is a presidential candidate who was possibly abducted by aliens.  The fact that the reader doesn't know with any more conclusiveness than she does was always meant to be the hook to draw their interest into the ongoing story as it explored the mythology of aliens as we know it.  In The X-Files Fox Mulder's kid sister's abduction was used as a prop to explore all manner of strange phenomena.  What some people liked to refer as its ideological offspring, Fringe, figured out that getting to the heart of the matter was more fascinating and ultimately rewarding.  No, Fringe wasn't about aliens but rather the aliens among us.

Arcadia's dilemma was always two-fold.  As governor of New Mexico, "aliens" meant illegal immigrants as much as extra-terrestrials.  Saucer Country never really got around to exploring that metaphorical irony.  Arcadia herself is not just a strong woman, but part of the story of illegal aliens, being of Latino descent.  In a lot of ways, even though she's closest to the abduction arc, Arcadia was also the least affected, most dispassionate about the whole business.  It's everyone else falling apart around her.  She just wanted to know what happened.

Well, as I said, Cornell to me is known as someone who knows his way around mythology.  Yet Saucer Country took its time getting around to that.  I almost abandoned the series myself waiting for it to happen.  Then I heard that it finally did, and so I had another look, and not only did it happen, but Cornell threw himself at it, much in the way he threw himself at Lex Luthor's quest for power in Action Comics (an arc that happened just before the New 52, right before the Doomsday arc, culminating in #900).

Well, let's have a look.

#6 is all about an outline of the history of flying saucers and close encounters.  It's just the tipping point.  #7 peals back an additional layer, exploring the equally familiar claims that the government knows far more than it lets on, with the military being the source of experiences that become the first obsession with UFO phenomena.  #8 is about the Men in Black, not the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones variety, but another familiar layer.  #9 continues that one, actually, explains who they actually are.

All while Saucer Country also functions as a look at the political process, by the way.

Maybe the problem is that Cornell tried to do too many things at the same time.  I know that G. Willow Wilson's Air, an equally ambitious Vertigo series I twice named to the top of my annual QB50 review of my favorite comics, had a different take on the traditional Vertigo look at mythologies.  Books like Sandman or Preacher or Fables find audiences because at their core they're easy to explain.  Sandman was about Neil Gaiman's love of storytelling.  Preacher was about Garth Ennis and the best representation of his typically cynical nature.  Fables is Bill Willingham exploiting fairy tales.  Air, meanwhile, was Wilson attempting to explore current international relations.  Saucer Country was Cornell's attempt to explain a topic that still exists in the ether, and may just as well always stay there.  And also about aliens.

The more complicated it became, the more Cornell made it difficult for a wide audience to appreciate Saucer Country.  The smaller audiences weren't biting, either.  Yet it was a fascinating experiment.  These are some flashy issues that caught my attention and reminded me of everything I appreciated from Cornell and my own expectations for the series, but the truth is it was always what it set out to be, and unfortunately most people either crave more explanation from the start or want something flashier to help distract from the lack of immediate resolution.

There are five issues remaining.  Cornell has said he won't rush the ending, that he hopes to finish the story somewhere else.  If nothing else, hopefully these issues will find an audience who will appreciate what he's already done.

The 10 Best Comics of 2012 (So Far)

The following are my favorite comic books from January through June.  They are not necessarily my favorite comic books being published in 2012, but the ones that have done the best work so far.

In no particular order:

Action Comics (DC)
Grant Morrison became my favorite comic book writer a little over five years ago.  Before that time I tended to take him for granted, except in cases like his hypermainstream JLA, and have been trying to play catch-up ever since.  Action Comics has since the New 52 launch last September been a fine example of Morrison's best instincts, presenting an iconic character in an iconic way that nonetheless presents an entirely new way to view him.  No other issue besides #9 presents this so well.  Outside of the regular continuity in the series to date, this issue presents an alternate reality Superman who just happens to be black, who ends up being confronted by a Clark Kent (along with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen) from yet another alternate reality, and forced together they challenge just about every preconceived notion of the Superman mythos, and is essential reading even if you've never cared for this character a day in your life.  I promise you that you'll know about to understand what's going on, and Morrison will blow your mind.

Batman and Robin (DC)
Pete Tomasi started out as an editor at DC (so did Mark Waid) but has transitioned into one of its most crucial writers, and I think this current stint on Batman and Robin may be the point where readers really start to notice.  While there's a lot of Batman comics out there, and Scott Snyder's dominates all the press, this is the one fans who care about the Dark Knight's continuing legacy really ought to be reading.  I wasn't reading this one at the start of the New 52, and only stumbled into it basically by accident, even though I've loved Tomasi and Patrick Gleason since Green Lantern Corps, and once I started I had to read everything I could get my hands on.  This doesn't happen to me all that often, so I knew I had found something special.  Basically this is the Damian we've all been waiting for, the one who is stubbornly claiming the story as all his own, a Robin with teeth, more controversial and more essential in the role than Jason Todd could ever hope to be, and in the signature story of the year, falling into a trap set by the son of Henri Ducard, famously depicted in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins as Bruce Wayne's original mentor (and real Ra's al Ghul, lest you forget), and clawing his way out, and even Batman doesn't quite know how to react, a story that's still unfolding.

Green Lantern (DC)
The unlikely redemption of Sinestro hit its stride in 2012 as he set about trying clean up the messes that still remained from his time leading the Yellow Corps, especially on his home planet of Korugar, and then dragging the reluctant Hal Jordan along to confront the Indigo Tribe, whose origin holds the key to unraveling  the Guardians' plans for an impending Third Army.  Originally I didn't understand how Geoff Johns intended to integrate Hal Jordan into his approach to Green Lantern, and this is a statement I make going all the way back to the launch of the 2006 series after Rebirth, but over time I've come to appreciate his vision as starting with a frequently rebellious and controversial member of the Corps to an expansion of the whole mythology that has developed the concept to a greater extent than any other writer in the history of the franchise.  His handling of Sinestro is emblematic of this approach, rehabilitating a character who had long been dismissed as a cautionary tale turned into a generic villain, but now one of the most nuanced figures in comics.  Hal becomes relevant as the one person who has the most to resent in Sinestro's new life, but also the one most likely to give him a fair shot, because he knows better than anyone that a fall from grace leads to a giant leap of faith in accepting a second chance to get it right.  I've been so surprised that Johns has actually lost a lot of the momentum he had earlier in his career, in terms of critical and fan support, that perhaps the more mainstream he's become, the easier it's become to underestimate his talent.  Any other writer might have stumbled in trying to figure out what his story for a franchise he's been writing for seven years will be in 2012, but Johns is still finding new ways to explore that same territory, and keep it interesting without even needing to reinvent the wheel every few years.

Justice League (DC)
The more remarkable thing about Johns is that he's not just writing Green Lantern, or even this book, or Aquaman, but has an official post in the DC front office, too, and he's not wasting his time in any of his commitments.  Justice League has failed to capture the popular fanboy imagination, and like Green Lantern isn't particularly a critical darling, either, but it remains one of the best things to come out of the New 52.  The truly remarkable thing is that as the series has aged since its launch last fall, it still retains an almost mythic appreciation of its central heroes, and has increasingly turned its focus to more earthbound concerns, including a villain Johns has been setting up since the beginning, who finally lost his faith in them when these superheroes couldn't, ultimately, solve every evil in the world, including those that struck his own family.  There's also liaison Steve Trevor, whose growing disillusionment concerning his relationship with Wonder Woman (a classic romance most modern writers have completely forgotten about) is proving to be the true star of the book, and a guest appearance from Green Arrow that challenges our conceptions of both the original and current incarnations of the character.  This is the first Justice League since Grant Morrison's that truly has legs, and if history (and more specifically his tenure with the Justice Society) is any indication, Johns is just getting started.  Equally noteworthy is the Shazam backup feature, in which Johns and Gary Frank update Billy Batson as a cynical orphan struggling to accept life with a new adoptive family, including the kids who are trying to make him feel at home.

Nightwing (DC)
There've been some great runs for Nightwing since he gained his first ongoing series in 1996, but Kyle Higgins is threatening to eclipse them.  He's been busy establishing himself on this book since last fall, introducing a more centralized version of Dick Grayson, grounded in his own story for perhaps the first time ever, revisiting Haly's Circus and discovering unexpected inheritance and corruption, no longer hiding from his roots in Gotham but actually embracing them, even during the midst of a nightmarish revelation that pits him at the heart of the Court of Owls, a fact Higgins and Scott Snyder might have talked a little more about, with perhaps greater results than we actually got.  Still, this is the most fun I've had reading the character in years, and considering he's long been one of my favorites, I hope that's saying something.

RASL (Cartoon)
Jeff Smith's underrated (or at least, underhyped) creative followup to Bone reached its final issues this year, and there's still no telling what the conclusion this month will actually reveal about the story of Rob Johnson, a scientist who saw his life's work turn into a nightmare he decided he had to stop personally, but that ended up proving far more difficult than he imagined.  There's the hopping behind parallel worlds, the girlfriend he thought he lost forever, the affair that he's been finding solace in throughout several alternate realities, and the former colleagues who will stop at nothing to thwart his efforts, believing as he can't that there's no harm in seeing his work through.  For Smith, I can only say that I wish this story could last longer, that we could soak in this world(s) for many more years, but he's reached the end and if RASL is an argument for anything, it's for creative freedom, knowing how far to go, and being allowed to finish the job under the right terms.

Saucer Country (Vertigo)
Paul Cornell has been growing into one of my favorite writers for years now, and I've been waiting for him to work on a book that could truly be considered his.  Saucer Country is that book.  Courting the familiar tales of alien abduction, Cornell subverts expectations by not only blurring the line between perception and reality, but thrusting it into a far bigger story about politics and image, and although the book is only a few months old, it already feels like the next great Vertigo series I hoped it could be, following in the tradition of Sandman and Y: The Last Man.  A lesser writer might have ended up writing X-Files stories already, but this is something Cornell has been thinking about for a long time, and it already shows, in his devotion to a linear structure that can already be considered byzantine, working on characters we're only just meeting as if they already have a rich and distinct history, leaving some critics utterly baffled, but some of us utterly enthralled.

The Secret History of D.B. Cooper (Oni)
Brian Churilla first came to my attention as an artist, but on this book he tackles writing duties as well, and taking readers on a huge leap of faith as he blends the mysterious figure of hijacker D.B. Cooper with an unlikely government assassin who travels into an alternate dimension in order to reach his targets, depicted as gruesome monsters he nonchalantly dispatches in between conversations with a talking teddy bear, all while in the real world dealing with very harsh realities he probably prefers to avoid.  Given that so little is known about Cooper, any legend, no matter how outlandish, can be considered the truth, and over the years a lot of people have been fingered to be the culprit, and Churilla happens to have taken that to the extreme, using fiction at its highest potential to embrace an elusive icon who's already at the fringe of the popular imagination to hopefully elevate him still higher.

The Shade (DC)
The long-awaited followup to Starman sees James Robinson exploring the life of a reformed villain, now so thoroughly engrossed in his own narrative that it seems scarcely credible that he was ever considered anything but what he essentially is, a rogue who plays by his own rules because hardly any others apply to him.  The best issues this year, #s 5-7, involve his relationship with a French vampire, La Sangre, and her own battles, a sidestep from the Shade's investigation into an attempt on his life, which has led him into the darkest secrets of his family line.  This is another book I am incredulous to see get so little critical or popular attention, not the least for its pedigree or its own worth.

Wasteland (Oni)
I've only just been able to read this series again after several years of its scarce availability and inconsistent publishing schedule, but a new artist has not dulled the impact of Antony Johnston's epic vision of an apocalyptic future where the past has become both a mystery and legend and the present is dominated by religious beliefs that don't much ken to outsiders, especially when those outsiders happen to be Michael and Abi, who hold many secrets, not to mention the key to explaining everything.  The story is rapidly bringing them closer to the fabled city of A-Ree-Yass-I, a destination readers have known about from the beginning, making this book that is in so many ways so similar to The Walking Dead, and in more important ways, besides far fewer readers, so different, and better, focused in a way that allows for a heartbreaking world where power rarely saves you from misery, but merely provides a temporary delusion, as the assassin Gerr discovered in #38.