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.

Supreme: Blue Rose #6 (Image)

via Image

writer: Warren Ellis

artist: Tula Lotay

This genius revision of Alan Moore's version of Rob Liefeld's Supreme will go down as a classic.  I'll keep saying that so that there's at least one voice saying it on the ground floor.  History in the making.

The problem, if there is one, is that perhaps it's history that will perhaps best be understood in the future.  That is to say, when the thing is collected and you can read it all at once.

The problem is that an issue like this one perhaps doesn't read like history because it doesn't itself ring like anything special.  But it's a necessary link in the chain.

And it's the penultimate issue.  Characters are figuring out where they've been headed.  Darius Dax plays his hand.  We're one issue away from finding out what exactly happened to Ethan Crane, the erstwhile Supreme.

Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay are brilliant even in isolation from what makes the project in itself brilliant.  

That's about all there's to say this time.

Reading Comics 144 "Supreme: Blue Rose"

via Image Comics

Rob Liefeld isn't dead, but he's began to have a wonderful creative afterlife.

A few years back, a couple of his characters were revised away from their strictly superheroic origins in the most recent Glory and Prophet comics, with Prophet in particular making a cult-sized impact.  Starting this year, it was Supreme's turn.  Liefeld originally conceived of Supreme as a more violent Superman.  Not long afterward, Alan Moore came along for the first revision of the character, crafting him into a full-blown homage to the Silver Age Superman, which later inspired Moore's own Tom Strong.  Image even brought this version back recently.

But now comes Warren Ellis.  Ellis is the slightly more grounded version of Grant Morrison, the one the mainstream couldn't hope to tame, as it has Jonathan Hickman.  From the moment I heard of Supreme: Blue Rose, I knew I had to have a look.  The longer it took for the opportunity to present itself, the more I wondered if the diminishing but intrigued response I heard, very tepidly, from my sources might be telling me that perhaps it wasn't all that remarkable after all.

But then I read an issue for myself.  And then was able to read the rest of the issues released to date.  It's amazing.

And actually, it's not hugely different from a personal favorite comic of mine, IDW's Cobra, which Christos Gage and Mike Costa envisioned as a first look at G.I. Joe's enemy just as if the reader had never seen it before, a true psychological exploration that exploded the concept onto a whole new level.

That's what Ellis is doing with Supreme.  Oh, and Supreme himself is barely even present in this story.  He's identified by his secret identity, Ethan Crane, but he's basically become the maguffin of his own story.

Instead, the focus has shifted to Diana Dane, the Lois Lane equivalent Moore introduced.  In fact, all the characters I can identify other than Supreme himself were created by Moore.  Darius Dax, Moore's Lex Luthor, has become very much a Lex Luthor figure.  Doc Rocket, a member of Moore's Youngblood, is present and better than ever.

It's hard to say much more about what's happened over the course of the first five issues except to say that Dane's investigation into the mystery of Ethan Crane's existence has continued.  The other thing Ellis shares with Moore is a fascination with the acknowledgment that there has been more than one incarnation of Supreme.  But this is not metafiction.  There isn't even much of a connection to Morrison's tendencies.  This is simply a creator embracing an opportunity to be creative, in ways most writers never even imagine possible.

It is unarguably one of the best comics of the year.  Astonishingly good, and the art of Tula Lotay helps in exactly the same way Fiona Staples does for Saga.  More people need to talk about Blue Rose.  More people need to be reading.  Because this is comic book history in the making.