Quick Hits 4

Superman #39 (DC)
Geoff Johns concludes his run with a gentle character study replete with his trademark insights.  Sad to see him go, but it's always good to have him visit with the Man of Steel.

Batman #39 (DC)
A cover-stripped and therefore freebie edition because of some issue or another, which nonetheless allowed me to read another installment of "Endgame," in which Batman hopes to discover the Joker's secrets from the Court of Owls, with anemic results, alas.  I keep expecting Scott Snyder to rise to expectations created by his high profile, and he keeps backing off.  Far more intriguing is the James Tynion IV backup featuring an almost-origin of the Joker.  It's clever, how the story unfolds, because at first it really does seem as if we've finally found out who he was and how he came to be, but then of course we find out it's just another of Joker's sadistic jokes, and it may actually be the best thing the Joker has done in the New 52.  Trace the story backward through previous comics (Batman Annual #2), and you've probably got a pretty good standalone collection right there.

Divinity #2 (Valiant)
So I'm becoming something of a Matt Kindt junkie.  I thought this was a standalone mini-series, but apparently it's tied in with Valiant's superheroes.  Still interesting, though.  The whole thing comes from an intriguing angle, a Russian cosmonaut from the '60s inexplicably coming back, without having aged, with extraordinary abilities, having broken the taboo of forming a romantic relationship prior to heading out into space...

MIND MGMT #25-31 (Dark Horse)
Catching up with the series to date leads to a number of fateful encounters (that's the crux of the whole series, really, unraveling the mystery of what happened and in the process leading to a long-in-coming conclusion to something, basically, that's already over).  Like Supreme: Blue Rose, it reminds me of Mike Costa's Cobra.

Quick Hits 3

 The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage #2 and 5 (Valiant)

I headed to my local comics shop with the hope to pick up the complete series, but ended up with just two issues, which is fine in a certain sense, given that one of them directly followed the first issue, which was what hooked me, and the other was the final issue of the mini-series.

In a lot of ways, this was more of a modern take on Vertigo than DC has been doing in the New 52, pulsing with an intrinsic grasp of arcane magic as a workable reality, sort of what Grant Morrison would be doing if he weren't so confrontational in most of his comics.  The writer, of course, is Jen Van Meter.  The covers are pretty great, too, including the one on the left from Travel Forman, while interior artist Roberto De La Torre is equally impressive.

The best news from the last issue is that the title is returning in Death-Defying Doctor Mirage: Second Life, to be eagerly anticipated whenever it appears on the publishing schedule.

And, this:

Mister X: Razed #1 (Dark Horse)

The best thing Dark Horse has been doing is keeping Dean Motter's Mister X alive, not only in reprints but in new comics as well.  This is the first time I catch first-run.  Apparently Motter always wanted to do holiday-themed comics with his famed insomniac architect.  This Christmas-themed issue is a little late (even though I'm a little late reading it myself, it was still late on original release), but still a lot of fun.

Ms. Marvel #13 (Marvel)

Honestly, my interest in the series had been waning.  But this issue has reminded me all over again what makes it great.  Kamala finds a soulmate, perhaps, in more ways than she could have dreamed.  Will the rest of the arc prove otherwise?  We wait with baited breath...

Quick Hits 2

Here's some more quick hits.

In your face!  (Funnier if you had
had worked with me at Borders.)

Aquaman and the Others #11 (DC)

This is my first issue of the series.  And it's also the last issue of the series.  I can see why.  

Earth 2: World's End #22 (DC)
Based on the preview cards and the same material appearing in all of DC's releases last week for next month's Convergence, I'd say this particular weekly is leading directly into it.  That and the end of this very issue.






Grayson #8 (DC)
This was a great week for ending things, I guess.  Dick's boss in Spyral, Minos, plays his hand.  And totally gets played.  Not brilliant, but probably the best regular issue I've read from the series to date.

The New 52: Futures End #44 (DC)
At some point, Superman officially made his return.  I like that he's back to the t-shirt look.  This is easily the best issue I've read of the series to date.

Saga #26 (Image)
In which Marko becomes a hopeless drug addict?  I know Hamburger K. Vaughan prefers paper correspondence, but here're my answers to the reader survey, results featured this issue: 1) Carter, 2) male, 3) no, 4) Green Lantern, 5) never left the good ol' USofA, 6) absurd (probably), 7) middle-to-late in the pack, 8) Peter Ackroyd's English Music, but to make things less obscure, Dan's Brown's Angels & Demons, 9) I generally support Israel's right to exist, 10) lately it's been cookie dough bites, 11) yeah, 12) no, 13) addicted to comics?, 14) One.org, 15) actually, because I tend to imagine the worst anyone could call me, people don't tend to vocalize it themselves, 16) we'll say it's a many cartoons tie, 17) I had to look up the best novel I've read recently, 18) I don't remember the name of it, but that one I was obsessed with a decade ago, 19) actually, pretty much every day, 20) none, 21) not yet, 22) U2's Songs of Innocence, 23) none, 24) for expansion of your cultural awareness, 25) hopefully for being a good brother, son, and having written a decent story or two.

Supreme: Blue Rose #7 (Image)
The biggest end of the batch and the best by far, this one concludes Warren Ellis's whole statement on the continuing legacy of Supreme by literally writing into the narrative that the poor guy actually waits for reboots.  Classic.

Yes, the title flower is a maguffin.
But a good one.

Quick Hits February 2015

Batman and Robin #39 (DC)

Still trying to adjust to the impending status change to Gleason's solo Robin, Son of Batman.  But this was a fun, and far less emotionally heavy issue from the waning days of the Tomasi era.  Damian and Billy Batson.  Need.  To.  Have.  Their own.  Series.

Django/Zorro #4 (Dynamite) 

Wagner has slowly brought Django into the narrative.  Now we're seeing how he fits in to Zorro's grand Arizona adventure.

G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes, Agent of Cobra #2 (IDW) 

Well, now Costa ain't even pretending this is not a direct continuation of his previous Cobra saga.  This is a good thing.

Justice League #39 (DC) 

A rather abrupt end to "The Amazo Virus."  Ever since Citizen Cold, I've been thinking Leonard Snart could easily use a bigger spotlight.  This issue continues that.

Ms. Marvel #12 (Marvel) 

The Loki issue.  Honestly, I've started cooling on this series.

The Multiversity: Mastermen (DC) 

Morrison and Lee keep the Multiversity in high gear.

Red Lanterns #39 (DC) 

Walker is slightly less impressive in his second issue, but is still on-point.

Thor Annual #1 (Marvel) 

CM Punk's story is hilarious, and hilariously aided by Chew artist Rob Guillory.  It's also surprising to see a Raphael Albuquerque cover on a Marvel comic.

And an older issue:

Justice League #23.4 (DC) 

Featuring a direct Forever Evil tie-in and another Flashpoint link-of-sorts.

Quick Hits: Young Avengers #1 (Marvel)

I think it's just struck me, what this new iteration of Young Avengers is like.  It's Runaways, the series that was launched by Brian K. Vaughan that was also about a bunch of misfit superhero kids.  I have never read Runaways.  Half of what I loved about Young Avengers was its clever extension of existing Marvel lore, which The Children's Crusade absolutely continued.  It's not just the characters, but how they're used and finally advance the musty Marvel landscape.  I don't think this new version is doing that.  It's like someone saw only the soap opera elements and decided that was the best thing about the original comics.  It was a good thing, but it wasn't the best.  Without the best part, it's not really Young Avengers...

Quick Hits: All-New X-Men #4, 5 (Marvel)

Another of my favorite launches from 2012, this is Brian Michael Bendis finally doing the X-Men book he all but promised in House of M.

The fourth issue pushes the strange arc of the current and conflicted mutants meeting their own past selves.  That's all well and good.  It advances thing enough so we can reach:

The fifth issue, in which Bendis really gets to write for both Jean Grey and Beast, the two biggest beneficiaries of this series not named Cyclops.  Jean is the most fascinating character ever to be sacrificed to the needs of a death in comics that somehow stayed pretty permanent.  This is her second chance and Bendis knows it, and that's reason enough to look at this whole story as something other than a gimmick.  She's here mostly to help Beast try to figure out a way to not die, which is odd because if I were writing it I'd be trying to find the loophole that would help Jean survive.

Both issues are illustrated by Stuart Immonen, who is a favorite and whose absence from some of the following issues is excuse enough for me to lose track of the series for a while.  Still, as worth checking out as anything else I endorse wholeheartedly.

Quick Hits: Wonder Woman #15 (DC)

Like anyone else I'm always hoping that Wonder Woman will somehow become one of the most popular series DC publishes, thereby finally expanding our favorite Amazon into the role she holds by default in the company as the most prominent/important female character in comics.  I thought it had another shot when it was announced Brian Azzarello would be writing the New 52 relaunch...and gradually I lost the hope.  While he's definitely been doing distinctive work, I've begun to view as less and less essentially and therefore essential work with Wonder Woman herself.  He's basically turned her into Percy Jackson.  Yet I vowed to have another look when Orion popped up.  Orion is one of Jack Kirby's New Gods, one of the few who really stands out, and has been sorely missed since Final Crisis.  Yet I'm not sure he works here any better than Wonder Woman, though conceptually they appear to be headed in a much more interesting direction in the months to come, soon to be entangled in the Superman affair currently being featured in Justice League and therefore key to the upcoming Trinity War.  All of which is to say this is a series that still bears monitors, works for what it is (basically an indy book starring one of the most famous superheroes of any company), and could still be more.

Quick Hits: Womanthology: Space #4 (IDW)

Womanthology is a collaborative effort that has been celebrating the ongoing contributions of, well, women in comics, and I love that it exists, but this is the first time I've actively participated, and the reason is simple enough: this issue features Devin K. Grayson.  Grayson write another Grayson, Dick Grayson, in the pages of Nightwing for a few years, and they were in some ways a worthy follow-up to Chuck Dixon's work, in other ways a evolution, and quite possibly the best storytelling the character has ever seen.  So I always had a high appreciation for Grayson, being Devin K. Grayson.  Some fans were turned off by some of what she did, and so her overall reputation fell like a stone, and her expanding work in comics slacked off considerably until she all but disappeared, which was a terrible shame.  So I will always relish when she makes an appearance, and this is one of them, one of several stories in the issue but reason enough to have it and enjoy her contribution, which reflects her Nightwing run, which I still miss.

Quick Hits: Wolverine #313 (Marvel)

About a year ago I learned that Jeph Loeb had not only already done a Wolverine story but was soon going to be doing another one.  I have a great appreciation for Loeb's writing (most recently in the must-read Nova #1), and so figured I'd check the second one out.  For whatever reason I kept missing it.  And then it ended and the series moved on.  Thankfully some comics shops keep a deep inventory on their new release shelves, and so some of the stuff you'll find their is pretty old indeed.  This issue was published last year and is the conclusion of the Sabretooth arc in which Logan's famous foe and erstwhile brother attempts to convince him that it was Logan himself who decided to enter the Weapon X program that famously gave him his adamantium and lost him his memory.  Much like Scott Snyder in "Death of the Family," Loeb hedges his bets at the end of the story, but it's fine, because it's still Loeb and he still knows how to do character better than just about anyone.  So I'm glad that I've finally read at least some of his Wolverine.

Quick Hits: Wasteland #42 (Oni)

My favorite indy comic is Wasteland and I am happy to continue talking about it even while no one else seems to.  On the way to A-Ree-Yass-I and now separated from Michael, Abi is confronted with the limits of her powers.  All of these are immediately relevant details to the overall series, but you can appreciate most of it individually this issue, which is something Antony Johnston has been getting better at the longer the series has continued.  Which is another reason that there's absolutely no excuse not to discover Wasteland for yourself.

Quick Hits: Threshold #1 (DC)

One of the most exciting bits of news I've heard recently is that Larfleeze is getting his own ongoing series.  Larfleeze is Agent Orange, the Orange Lantern, the alien filled with avarice who is sole possessor of the orange spectrum but has populated his "corps" with enough constructs that you might be forgiven to forget that.  He's the best character Geoff Johns created in his Green Lantern run, a regular hoot and a holler, and has previously been featured in his own Christmas one-shot and as a backup in Threshold.

Oh!  This whole thing is supposed to be about Threshold!  Keith Giffen is a legend who has mostly worked at DC, and he's been waiting for a truly signature book that he hasn't had to co-write or use "bwa-ha-ha" as a signature line.  As debuted in the recent Green Lantern Corps annual, the renegade Green Lantern I've dubbed Threshold himself (but that's not really his name) is currently in the midst of a killer reality show known as The Hunted (also the subtitle of a Deathstroke arc I still mean to read some day).

But you really want to read Threshold because of Larfleeze, as proven by the recent news of his own series.  Did I say that already?  I'm feeling a little greedy.  Threshold can only be appreciated for Larfleeze!  Who, by the way, is made speechless with rage (not in a Red Lanterns kind of way, but in a clever caption-y kind of way) when someone steals from him, and not just anything but his battery.

You will read Larfleeze!  Because he collects readers, too.

Quick Hits: Think Tank Military Dossier (Top Cow)

Think Tank is like Fringe or any other TV series you can think of where eccentric individuals are brought together for some reason or another, usually crime or science or both (that would be Fringe).  it comes from the mind of Matt Hawkins, who is more usually understood as a backstage kind of guy, but has some interesting ideas of his own.  Think Tank is littered with them.  This is a profiles one-shot, and as such is a primer for anyone who isn't already familiar with the series, but is rounded out with what appears to be fairly typical backup material that covers the same kind of territorial in a more technical manner, supporting the fiction with nonfiction as it were.  All of it appears pretty interesting.

Quick Hits: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Hive #3 (IDW)

Brannon Braga's ultimate Borg adventure continues, and for the bulk of the issue things kind of happen, and only in the final pages do we finally see hope that something will amount from it other than an epic setup that finally proposes resolution for Picard's link to the Collective.  This is to say Data's role will finally come into focus in the finale.  Data was a key aspect of Star Trek: First Contact, Hive's most obvious predecessor besides "The Best of Both Worlds."

Quick Hits: Doctor Spider-Man (Marvel)

As everyone knows by now, one of the biggest comic book stories at the close of 2012 was Doctor Octopus switching minds with Peter Parker and thus becoming Spider-Man, and obnoxiously continually plugging the name of the new series that would replace the long-running Amazing Spider-Man.

All of this began in Amazing Spider-Man #698, in which the switch actually occurred.  I finally picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble, because this story for better or worse is a big deal.  It's Amazing Spider-Man #700, however, that everyone latched onto, an oversized celebration that forced Otto Octavius to relive Peter's greatest moments, the ones that helped shape his life, and therefore made Doc Ock realize what a complete joke his criminal career had been, thereby making the transition into Spider-Man not just about being his own worst enemy but a curious kind of redemption.

Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 will probably be overlooked by just about everyone forever, but it's a nice transitional meditation on the whole affair, and I'm glad it was available when I finally decided I cared and everything else wasn't.  

Superior Spider-Man #1, meanwhile, is pretty much exactly what you'd expect.  Otto isn't quite as benevolent as Peter's Wonderful Life might have led readers to believe, but most readers weren't really paying attention to the details, and neither was writer Dan Slott, who appears to be as conflicted by the whole story as his lead character.  On the one hand he's had to acknowledge for impatient and bothered readers that this is all temporary, and on the other he's had to pretend that it is.  In the meantime it's all a game of trying to exploit it to the best possible degree.  Slott calls this the biggest and best story he's ever wanted to tell, and in a lot of ways it is.  It was pretty awesome when Sylar and Nathan Petrelli did it in the fourth season of Heroes, too.  

Doctor Spider-Man really exists because of the Brand New Day era, where everything old was made new again, which somehow left dear Otto on the verge of death for years, constantly attempting one last desperate ploy after another.  Slott himself, once he launched his Big Time era, seemed to leave Otto out of his plans, and now here he is, in the middle of the biggest plan of them all.  All pretty shocking for an iconic villain who starred in the most popular of the Spider-Man movies.

Everyone knows that Peter will get his body back.  Will Otto have changed at all when he's evicted from his superior footing?  Will he even survive?  Only time will tell.  Fascinating stuff told tolerably well in the meantime...

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.

Quick Hits: Saga #2, 8, 9 (Image)

Saga was my favorite new launch of last year, and it seems to be settling comfortably into everyone else's, a perfect word-of-mouth comic that Image has gotten behind.  Half of this isn't so hard to understand, given that it's written by Brian K. Vaughan, and he's done this before with Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Runaways, but that he's doing it again can still only be considered remarkable.

I've previously tracked down the first issue thanks to a reprint, mistakenly believing that I'd started reading the series with the second issue, but it was in fact the third, so I went tracking again and got the second and so completed that much of the reading experience (I'm now behind a few issues, and don't know if I'll be able to continue keeping up outside of the trades).  This issue features the first appearance of The Stalk, a bounty hunter who was killed off far too quickly for artist Fiona Staples' interests, because she loved designing and drawing the curiously attractive spider lady.  More on Stalk in a moment.

The eighth issue is made up of a bunch of sometimes disturbing family bonding moments, and so is just a fun one to read (but really, they all are), including how Marko and Alana met.  Honestly, I could read this series forever.

The ninenth issue, meanwhile, features the "return" of The Stalk but is really all about The Will being all Han Solo-y, which is good, because The Will is another excellent character and I could read him forever, too.

Quick Hits: Red Hood and the Outlaws #15 (DC)

Part of the "Death of the Family" crossover that concluded recently, this is one of those issues that could've been something really special, especially considering that it stars Jason Todd, the first Robin to die in the line of duty, confronting the psychopath who killed him, the Joker.  Unlike the initial Batman and Robin outing, however, Red Hood and the Outlaws doesn't embrace the opportunity, which is curious, because Scott Lobdell has wisely wrapped the whole series around Jason's perspective, which is part of the reason I've been trying to make the case for it being exactly the opposite of the horrible mistake everyone else has been trying to make it.  Yet for some reason Lobdell hesitates at the moment of his greatest triumph, and this may be due to the fact that he simply wasn't sure how far he could take it, given that the Joker has similar confrontations in every other tie-in, and so inherently the moment can't help but be dimmed, because that was the weakness inherent in the apparent strength of a Joker story like this.  You can't expect him to be everything to everyone.  And so Jason doesn't get much out of what should have been a seminal moment.  Maybe the other issue accomplishes that, or maybe there's simply room for a future story where Joker and Jason are all alone together, advancing the "Under the Hood" story that much further.  Because in a lot of ways, the Joker is more of a Jason Todd villain now than he can hope to be Batman's.  Batgirl has a similar claim.  I didn't check in to see whether the moment was realized in her opportunities.

Quick Hits: Punk Rock Jesus #6 (Vertigo)

Sean Murphy's conclusion to Punk Rock Jesus can be enjoyed by those who didn't even read the rest of the series.  I should know, because I only read one other issue.  I knew I'd want to at least have a look when I originally saw the series announced, because it could either be really good or really crappy with a name like that, and yeah, it turned out to be really good.  It's the type of finale that seems to undo everything that came before it, and yet it's a resonant kind of undoing, making everything that much more interesting, the characters that much deeper.

Quick Hits: Nova #1 (Marvel)

Jeph Loeb is a treasure in comics, and I think most people know that, but I don't think that his work with Marvel has been particularly expressive of that.  Nova may be the book that changes that.  It may also be his best work ever.  It's very much the kind of work that can only be done after a cumulative effect, years of life and work converging, and anyway, you don't have to worry about that.  You don't even need to particularly care about the Nova concept, which I am more or less completely ignorant about.  This issue exquisitely details the relationship between a father and son, the father being a former member of the Nova Corps and the son being a kid who doesn't believe for a minute that his father is a former member of the Nova Corps.  The Nova Corps is basically the Marvel version of the Green Lantern Corps, by the way, only with an awesome helmet instead of an all-powerful ring.  This has my pick as first issue of the year, new series of the year, all of that.  It must be read.  It will be enjoyed.  And it's at the very least a career highlight for someone who has already made a career out of highlights.

Quick Hits: Legends of the Dark Knight #5 (DC)

I love anthology titles because it increases the possibility for welcomes surprises, and this particular issue of Legends of the Dark Knight is exactly what I'm talking about.  I've been trying to find ways to appreciate Joshua Hale Fialkov short of making a commitment to I, Vampire (which if I didn't have to worry about money would probably have been a series to follow since its launch, but looked for all appearances to be something that would've been cancelled long ago), and so along with the recent news that he'll be one of the lead writers in the Green Lantern creative relaunch this was the best thing I could've discovered.  It's a Batman story featuring the classic detective character Slam Bradley (I think I'd respect the much ballyhooed Gotham Central if it had featured more cowbell, I mean Slam Bradley).  And what's more, it's illustrated by Phil Hester.  I love Phil Hester.  I don't have a clue why more people don't love Phil Hester.  He's known for his art, which on fine display here, but he's also a killer writer, as evidenced by anything from Golly to The Anchor.  I would've loved this issue regardless, but it was enjoyable too!