Reading Comics 228 "FCBD 2019"

What I love about Free Comic Book Day is that it's basically the best shot most companies have at being visible to the average reader.  For the folks showing up just for free comics, it probably won't make much of a difference.  For the folks who show up to comics shops every Wednesday or in any other sense on a regular basis, it's a chance to find out what companies outside of DC and Marvel are doing (because let's face it, for the average fan, it's still basically just DC and Marvel).  I don't know how many sales these free comics result in (for a long time, I bought Atomic Robo comics in part because Red 5 always included it in their FCBD releases, when Red 5 had Atomic Robo in its slate), but it says a lot about the companies, what they're willing to release for the annual celebration. 

Here again is what I got, and what I thought after reading through all of it:

Animosity Tales (AfterShock)
Marguerite Bennett's comic is basically the flagship of AfterShock, another would-be Image in a crowded indy scene.  What was more interesting than the story featured in the issue was the summary of the series to date, which reads a heck of a lot like The Walking Dead.  So if you want your zombies to instead be animals, this is the comic for you.

Bloodshot (Valiant)
I've been a supporter of the Valiant relaunch for years (not specifically from the start, but around the time The Valiant came out).  While I don't love everything they publish, I still maintain that this is the discerning superhero fan's best bet for a coherent modern landscape to follow, the Ultimate version of the classic Valiant characters, the condensed version of what the New 52 attempted.  And Bloodshot has been a part of it, and been a favorite of mine, for years.  This take is from Tim Seeley, who's been an underrated star of the modern comics landscape whether in his DC work or elsewhere.  But Seeley's take on Bloodshot feels hollow compared to what Jeff Lemire was doing.  Lemire pulled off Bloodsquirt!  He wants a Bloodshot that's actually the complete reverse of Lemire's, all action and no character study.  I thought that was the best part of the modern Bloodshot!  Anyway, also included is the latest chapter of the Rai saga, Fallen World, which reads a lot better.  It's from Dan Abnett, who could use a breakout solo project. 

Deadly Class (Image)
I'd sampled the series previously, but this particular issue was a brilliant way to highlight what makes it truly awesome, and I'm glad all over again that there's a TV adaptation, which I hope to catch.  Remender's a particularly busy creator, the hardest working concept engine not named Mark Millar, who takes all manner of risks with high concepts. 

H1 Ignition (Humanoids)
Here's Mark Waid's latest attempt at a startup.  Dude's been at this for twenty years now, and...has yet to find one that truly sticks (or as with Boom!...sticks with).  This one's all about straining for modern credibility, the social awareness that actually...turned off a lot of Marvel fans.  Maybe it works better with new characters.  I don't know.  But this preview is somewhat poorly put together.  I have little faith of it sticking any better than his previous efforts.  I have no idea why Waid strayed so far from what he did so brilliantly in the pages of The Flash.  Maybe someday he rediscovers that spark.

Interceptor (Vault)
Donny Cates is another firecracker in modern comics, but one that's working equally hard at mainstream (with Marvel) as with his personal projects.  Since this isn't a well-loved era for Marvel, fans haven't really rallied around him, but I like to see what he's doing.  I like his storytelling in this issue.  He's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

 

Punchline (Antarctic Press)

Here's the best comic I read from the bunch!  It's a superhero book from other than DC/Marvel, which is always an interesting prospect.  There will be great material done elsewhere (see: Valiant) and there will be shoddy stuff.  This looks like great stuff.

Part of what makes it look great is the artwork, naturally.  Matthew Weldon seems like the closest I'll get to classic Stuart Immonen, before he started adding detail into his clean forms.  There's some rough work in there, but Weldon is like Patrick Gleason more interested in shadow than warm figures, a moody look at its best that the touch of reality Bill Williams seeks in a script that looks more to the human than superhuman.

I like the details Williams includes, like the fact that the Black Arrow is actually two people sharing a costume to evade seekers of secret identities.  (I'd read that comic, too, thank you!)  It feels like a genuinely fresh take, just when you thought you'd seen everything.  There's a collection already available with the rest of the story, which I think I might actually track down (read: order online).  And I guess there's more new issues coming. 

Stranger Things (Dark Horse)
As I've said, I haven't been initiated into the Stranger Things cult, and this comic didn't make me consider reconsidering.  Fortunately there was also a Black Hammer backup, with Jeff Lemire presenting the "Cabin of Horrors," clearly an homage to House of Mystery and such.  Eventually we meet Jack Sabbath (familiar to Black Hammer fans?), who has just discovered that his backstory might be different than he previously thought.  Cowritten by Ray Fawkes, in defense of whom I sort of exiled myself from Millarworld a few months back.  Also discovered that Mice Templar artist Victor Santos has been working at Dark Horse recently, with a long-running espionage comic called Polar, which might be worth checking out.  See, Free Comic Book Day???  Success.

Year of the Villain (DC)
Again, not technically a FCBD release, but for the second year in a row a cheap DC comic meant to promote upcoming stories.  Scott Snyder is the brains behind a new Underworld Unleashed/Forever Evil-type event headlined by the bad guys.  I really wish Lex Luthor could just stay the antihero he's done so well in stories like Final Night and Geoff Johns' Justice League, but he keeps getting dragged back into villainy.  This is one of those stories where "he's finally gone too far."  More significantly, Brian Michael Bendis signals he may be interested in working on Batgirl comics, with a tale that finally allows Barbara Gordon to remember she was pretty badass as Oracle, too.

Star Wars Day: May the 4th Be With You (Marvel)
Again, not technically a FCBD release (but part of another of the things last Saturday was culturally).  Besides some previews for various comics, there are some creator interviews, including one spotlighting Kieron Gillen's creation of Doctor Aphra, whom he repeatedly describes as a Star Wars version of Indiana Jones.  (Yes, yes, yes: Harrison Ford played both Indy and Han Solo, but Gillen's point is that Aphra collects artifacts...but with a more nefarious agenda in mind!)  On the whole, I'm quite happy that Marvel got the rights for Star Wars back from Dark Horse (other than Dark Horse's brilliant adaptation of The Star Wars), as it sticks much closer to film material and less creating whatever the hell it wants.  I just can't decide if Aphra is closer to the Dark Horse mentality than Marvel's...

Back Issue Bin 122 "The Batgirl of Burnside and other Throwbacks"

Batgirl #42 (DC)
(from September 2015)

The Batgirl of Burnside will be remembered as a turning point in DC lore, not only for permanently reviving Barbara Gordon's superhero career, but as part of the youth movement that also saw Marvel introduce Kamala Khan and a whole generation of young heroes, as well as inspiring the brief DCYou era.  I was already well into a more limited comics reading experience by the time Batgirl went to Burnside, but I appreciated the idea even if I didn't get a chance to read it myself.  (There's a silly notion that just because you haven't personally enjoyed something you somehow automatically count as uninterested; that's poor perception of economics.)  The Burnside revival began in Batgirl #35, and it was as much cosmetic as approach.  Babs suddenly looked youthful again, and she was given a bold new costume and art direction, the latter of which was another primary feature of DCYou.  This issue features a different redesigned member of the Batman family, namely Batman himself, or rather Commissioner Batman, James Gordon.  Y'know, Batgirl's dad.  Commissioner Batman was also a bold creative left turn, always meant to be temporary.  It was only fitting for Batman and Batgirl to team up during this era, so I'm glad it happened.

Batman #457 (DC)
(from December 1990)

Ah!  This was Tim Drake's costumed debut!  Tim Drake, otherwise known as the third Robin, after Dick Grayson and Jason Todd.  In the Rebirth era, continued efforts to distinguish Tim led to his "death" in Detective Comics, as part of the Oz arc that eventually revealed the mystery figure to be Superman's dad Jor-El.  Tim was originally designed to be a dynamic new Robin, a faithful partner of Batman in standing with tradition, but "Knightfall" and its aftermath actually shoved him into full-fledged independence.  He eventually assumed the mantle of Red Robin in an ode to Kingdom Come, even wearing the same costume Dick does in that comic.  In the New 52, even though he was the first Robin to have his own ongoing series, Tim had to make do with leading the Teen Titans while Dick starred in Nightwing and then Grayson, and Jason in Red Hood and the Outlaws while Batman's kid Damian Wayne costarred in Batman and Robin.  For a generation of Robin fans, Tim Drake is the Boy Wonder, so this is a landmark issue.  It's the first time the traditional costume gets a complete overhaul, too!

Captain America #698 (Marvel)
(from April 2018)

Okay, so this one's pretty recent, a victim of a cover tear and subsequent banishment to the cheap bin.  I love that stuff!  This is one of Mark Waid's early comics in the post-Secret Empire revival, Marvel's effort to redeem the character after spending roughly a year with him operating as a natural born agent of Hydra.  Waid kicks off an arc where Cap wakes up after having been frozen again, with America in the grip of tyranny.  Only Captain America can save the day!  Ironically!

Earth 2 #25 (DC)
(from September 2014)

After James Robinson set up the concept, Tom Taylor took over and got to use versions of Superman and Batman.  I loved the New 52 Earth 2.  The Society continuation wrapped up in the early days of the Rebirth era, but at that point really only the DC office cared, which was too bad.  The Earth 2 Batman was actually Thomas Wayne!  I don't know if this was inspired by the Flashpoint Batman, but it was fun to see DC revive the idea in some fashion.  Obviously Batman couldn't dominate the title, even if he makes the cover this issue, at least the Batman 75th Anniversary edition.  Because the issue also features Val-Zod, the Earth 2 Superman, finally decide to embrace being Superman, so he rates the standard cover.

And there he is!  Both the Earth 2 Batman and Earth 2 Superman had unique costume variants on the classic templates.  Thomas Wayne Batman had red where Bruce Wayne typically has white, and Val-Zod sports silver where Clark Kent has red, with a red substitute as the field behind the s-shield.  As events later developed, neither Thomas Wayne nor Val-Zod were adequate substitutes for the icons who died in the first issue, but Dick Grayson later assumes the mantle of Batman in Convergence and Earth 2: Society, marking a true progression in the lineage he only gets to temporarily fulfill in regular continuity.









The Flash #48 (DC)
(from March 1991)

With no offense to William Messner-Loebs (help him here!), Wally West didn't properly become the Flash until Mark Waid started writing him.  That may have something to do with the fact that I was introduced to Wally as Flash by Waid's comics.  So I like to look into Messner-Loebs' work when I get the chance.  Among the interesting guest-stars this issue include Elongated Man Ralph Dibney (as a Flash continuity nerd it's surprising that Waid never got around to that) and a severely aged Vandal Savage (really want to read that next issue now!).  Plus Wally learning new things about his mom.  Waid was definitely part of the mythology movement that came to dominate DC, whereas Messner-Loebs embodied the more grounded ideas of the receding era that came before it.  It's not surprising their takes on Wally were different. 

Gotham Academy #7 (DC)
(from August 2015)

Batman tends to dominate DC's publishing schedule, as he's been their most consistent seller for...fifty years?  That's about right.  So that gives him a lot of sway, and gives creators a lot of space to play in.  This concept takes place in Gotham but doesn't necessarily involve Batman, although I chose this particular issue because it features his kid, Damian Wayne.  At this point, really only Grant Morrison and Pete Tomasi had written Damian, so this was an opportunity for a fresh set of eyes.  The result is a much softer version, which stands to reason, as Gotham Academy was itself a much more kid-friendly Batman comic.

Grayson #11 (DC)
(from October 2015)

It's sometimes easy to assume Tom King ended up getting the Batman assignment because of DC's respect for his Omega Men, but it's really down to his work on Grayson, where he got to explore the Batman landscape with a writing partner (Tim Seeley, who later built on Grayson's legacy with his Nightwing Rebirth material).  And King even had Mikel Janin on art!  Janin later proved to be a signature collaborator in the pages of Batman, too, of course, which makes it all the more obvious how important Grayson was for both their careers.  This issue, with a typically fantastic cover from Janin, helps the title reach a culmination of the Spyral arc it continued from Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated (first volume).  Really, even I sometimes underestimate the importance of this groundwork material for King.  Someday I hope to read the complete run, add it to my King collection.  I have pretty much everything else already.



The Adventures of Superman Annual #3 (DC)
(from 1991)

The Armageddon 2001 annuals arc was one of the early themed events DC did that helped set the precedent for what it would later make an annual tradition in the New 52.  In fact, this particular arc is not all that different from Futures End, a kind of fast-forward.  Waverider, a character who could really use a revival, peers into the future of every hero trying to determine who becomes the villainous Monarch.  DC lore has it that it was originally intended to be Captain Atom, who in fact does become a different Monarch years later in the pages of Extreme Justice, but in the meantime it was switched to Hawk of Hawk & Dove (soon to appear on television!).  At any rate, it was never going to be Superman, right?  This issue instead focuses on the then-recent introduction of Maxima as an alien who fancies Superman to be her ideal mate.  Ah...they're later in Dan Jurgens' Justice League together! 

Adventures of Superman #632 (DC)
(from November 2004)

There's a number of things Greg Rucka is known for in his first run with DC (Wonder Woman, Gotham Central chief among them, and eventually Batwoman), but writing Superman isn't one of them.  And yet here he is!  There are two things to know about the issue: one is that Lois has been shot and is possibly dying (hindsight says probably not), and that Ruin is trying to become the next great Superman villain (hindsight says probably not, possibly owing to the fact that he's basically Lex Luthor).  Please also note Paul Pelletier on art!

Marvel Knights: X-Men #5 (Marvel)
(from May 2014)

Industry observers hailed Marvel Knights, along with the Ultimate line, to be one of Marvel's creative saviors in the early millennium.  Somewhere along the way both of them petered out, the Ultimate comics with a bang, the Knights with a whimper.  This is one of those projects that just kind of happened.  It's an ambitious attempt by new creators to give the X-Men new creative relevance (which was the Knights mandate as a whole) without necessarily reinventing the wheel.  Maybe the results this time were a little too woolly to stick the landing, too caught up with the emerging indy aesthetic Marvel would come to try and embrace across its line.  So it didn't really stick out.  But for an X-Men comic it still looks unique.  I think the problem mostly was that it tried to introduce new characters but didn't trust them to guide the story.  The X-Men gained new life when new characters started guiding the story.  Maybe time to try that again?

Reading Comics 207 "August 2017 LCS Trip"

Here's a brief look at my latest check-in:

Descender #22 (Image)
Remains a favorite, even if I'm not reading it all the time.  The metaphorical knife that was stuck into poor Dr. Quon so brutally early in the series just keeps getting twisted.  In a lot of ways, that makes this his story almost more than Tim's...

New Gods Special (DC)
Shane Davis (Superman: Earth One) turns in a thoroughly competent look at Orion.  He seems to come off best when he's in the spotlight (Orion, I mean).

Nightwing #26 (DC)
Tim Seeley continues extending Grayson's legacy, and Dick Grayson's legacy in general, bringing back Huntress into the fold.  I know fans like to imagine Dick and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) will one day officially declare a relationship, but between Grayson: Futures End (one of my all-time favorite comics) and the Nightwing/Huntress mini-series from two decades ago...my money's on them.

Revival #43-47 (Image)
Speaking of Seeley, I decided to finally have a look at this, and as it turns out, these are the final issues of the series.  While he's working from a familiar playbook (the most famous recent example being The Walking Dead, which you may have heard of), Seeley injects enough into the intricacies of character dynamics that Revival reads as a distinctive piece.  I'm sure anyone who'd read the preceding 42 issues will take away a lot more, but it was surprisingly easy to get into, with or without the short recaps inside the front covers. 

Reading Comics 206 "The War of Kings and Seeleys"

Tom King and Tim Seeley established their mainstream cred together in the pages of Grayson, and it seems they're still creating some of my favorite comics, several years later.

I've talked a lot about King already.  I became hopelessly devoted to him thanks to Omega Men, and have been reading his comics as faithfully as I can ever since.  In Batman #27, the latest issue I've read from the run, an interlude in the "War of Jokes and Riddles" arc, he finally gets around to explaining Kite Man.  Kite Man has been making appearances throughout the run, and he's always saying his name, "Kite Man!"  Now, Kite Man is hardly an iconic Batman villain.  That King has been using him at all has probably been the most notable thing Kite Man has ever done.  This issue gives him a tragic backstory and origin.  Some readers have found it needlessly dark.  King has kept Batman a bestseller, and with that has found plenty of readers who find his work incomprehensible.  I think this issue, which is the first of two, is absolutely brilliant, full of time jumps of the kind that first made King notable (Grayson: Futures End) for me.

The issue also includes a preview for King's Mister Miracle, which promises to be the DC version of his breakthrough Vision at Marvel, the run that introduced other readers to his talent.  I can't wait to read more of it, although it seems somewhat likely that I'll either be playing catchup (as I did with Omega Men) or wait to read the trade collection.  I'm still nowhere near a point where I can read comics regularly again, no matter how fascinating some projects are.

I finally played catchup with King's Sheriff of Babylon, his previous project with Mister Miracle artist Mitch Gerads.  If I ever managed to copy my Goodreads reviews to this blog, you'd know how much I loved that.

Seeley, I kind of thought was just trading on King's greatness, there to help him transition into writing comics regularly.  But the more I've read his solo work (have yet to catch an issue of Revival, alas), the more I realize I was wrong.  Nightwing #25 is brilliant, in a different way than King is brilliant, but it's the latest example of how much I love Seeley's Nightwing.  It's becoming my all-time favorite Nightwing.  This issue wraps up a Blockbuster arc.  Blockbuster was the dominant villain of the first Nightwing ongoing series, the DC Kingpin to Dick Grayson's Daredevil (as the analogy always seemed to be).  This of course means that Dick has been running around Bludhaven again.  Seeley has made Bludhaven more real in one issue than Chuck Dixon and Devin K. Grayson (as awesome as they were for a combined hundred+ issues) ever did.  He's envisioned a reason Bludhaven exists, other than to create a Gotham for Nightwing, and a working framework with its own internal logic.  His Blockbuster combines the version who previously battled Nightwing with the original conception of the character, before he got smart via Underworld Unleashed. 

The result is that both King and Seeley are innovating superhero mob comics.  I have no idea if they talk about these things with each other, if it's a coincidence, if there's competition, what have you.  Even if King is getting all the attention, Seeley deserves just as much, from a character perspective, literally synthesizing all of Nightwing's recent history to create a cohesive whole.  He's no longer jumping from concept to concept in an effort to find something that works, but rather drawing from what's worked and finding ways to help it keep working.  He's not only continued his and King's Grayson material, but Grant Morrison's Batman saga, and of course the Bludhaven era.  And this is going to make Seeley the new touchstone on the character. 

Like I said, he's giving King a run for his money.  They're both doing definitive work.

Reading Comics 204 "Fifth Trip 2017"

American Gods #2 (Dark Horse)
Amazingly, this adaption of the Neil Gaiman book still really hasn't reached the actual concept of the story.  Although Spider does drink an amazing amount of mead, and beats up a rather tall leprechaun.

Bane: Conquest #1 (DC)
Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan reunite and return to the chronicles of Bane.  The results may baffle readers who are less familiar with Vengeance of Bane (parts 1 & 2) and more "Knightfall," Dark Knight Rises, Tom King's recent "I Am Bane," or any manner of terrible Bane appearances over the years, but they're entirely in-character, especially, again, for the Bane of Vengeance of Bane (parts 1 & 2).  The luchadore mask Nolan gives Bane for this comic is a fun little nod to the fact that the character is, technically, Latino, even though that never seems to come up other than his base of operations and/or origins.

Batman #21 (DC)
The Flash #21 (DC)
Batman #22 (DC)
Parts 1-3 of "The Button" see Tom King and Josh Williamson collaborate on a sequel to Flashpoint (the importance of this classic story to yours truly is chronicled in the early period of this blog) that also helps set up later DC-wide storytelling first introduced by DC Universe Rebirth.  Very, very good storytelling here.

Blue Beetle #8 (DC)
Giffen/DeMatteis have apparently taken over the title as of this issue, and bring a strong Larfleeze feel to the proceedings.  I loved the original Jaime Reyes series post-Infinite Crisis, and so it's great to read his Blue Beetle again.  The big draw for the issue, however, is that the magical scarab that has granted him powers (and/or de facto Iron Man suit) all these years has been taken from him.  So he and Ted Kord (the second and most famous Blue Beetle) make a bold decision: Jaime will now, even if temporarily, revive Ted's classic costume.  Yeah!

Divinity III: Stalinverse #4 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt will be moving on to Eternity, a sequel rather than continuation to Divinity, so this is the conclusion of this particular vision.  And I think, having read it twice, he came up with a good one:

"This world you've built may be real.  But you know it is not true.  You read books when you were younger.  Just as I did.  Do you not remember?  We are similar, you and I.  We were not forced to read.  We were encouraged.  But my adoptive parents raised me.  Treated me as their own.  They gave me books.  Science fiction was my favorite.  I read everything they gave me.  It wasn't until much later that I realized what they'd really done.  My parents couldn't force me...or anyone to be good.  Just as the Soviet Union cannot.  All they could do was present me with their example.  And with stories.  With writing.  With ideas.  Through those books I learned the danger of power.  I learned of the terrible effects of violence and conflict.  Of the unending cycle of war that we should be working to break.  And I learned the importance of love and to be loved.  Earth...humanity?  They are our children, Kazmir.  They can't be forced to learn.  They must learn by example.  They must be taught with stories.  With experience.  We have the power of gods, Kazmir.  Yet you choose to live a parasitic life inside Myshka.  And you choose to obey a small-minded oligarch.  But there is an entire universe out there for you.  Worlds to see.  Galaxies to explore.  Just like in the books we read when we were younger.  I am sorry for what happened to us out there...in the unknown.  I am sorry I did not bring you back when I returned.  And I am sorry that Myshka broke your heart.  I understand why you came back for revenge.  What I don't understand is why wouldn't you stay out there?  Why wouldn't you go further?  Why wouldn't you want to see more?  Our conflict will have a winner and a loser.  That is the nature of the game.  But why should we confine ourselves to the game?  Ti these pieces?  To this artificial boundary?  To Earth?  When there is the unknown all around us?  Waiting to be explored?  I tell you all of this, Kazmir, not to "win."  But to set you free."

That's the best argument an hero has probably ever made to their enemy, in a comic book.  It's an argument that can only be made in a comic book, I think.  It's a perfect synopsis of superhero logic, as has Divinity been from the start.  I don't know why Divinity hasn't become more important among comic book readers.  It's the Watchmen of intellectual superhero storytelling.  It's surely one of the most fascinating comics I've ever read.  Every issue has someone involved in creating the issue provide commentary.  Most of it is somewhat hugely overblown praise. Most of it seems to miss the point.  It's not just how it's executed that makes Divinity great, but its ideas.  I'm hugely glad to have read along.  And to see where Kindt goes next.

Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern #3 (Boom!/DC)
This latest mash-up is about as good as Green Lantern/Star Trek (which is to say, good), but it's the art I came to see.  Omega Men's Barnaby Bagenda, to be precise.  That guy deserves to reach the stratosphere, like his collaborator, Tom King.  Hopefully it'll happen at some point.

Green Lanterns #22 (DC)
The adventures of upstarts Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz have now reached the stage where they're actively interacting with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.  Continues to be what I've long hoped to read in a Green Lantern comic again.

Nightwing #19, 20 (DC)
Well, hot damn.  Tim Seeley has turned Nightwing into a must-read after all.  Nightwing has been so hit-and-miss since the Dixon/Grayson years, a lot of creators coming in hot and then sort of sputtering out.  This includes Grayson, Seeley and Tom King's bold revision that saw Nightwing become a spy for a couple years.  But to take Nightwing away from Dick Grayson is to take away the essential part of the character, no matter how intriguing the results.  Too many of these writers have tried to forget this or that element of the character.  Seeley seems to have built not only on the Grayson momentum, but folded Dick's Batman and Robin days back into his adventures.  "Nightwing Must Die" is a Dr. Hurt story (the whole thing plays nicely with Batman and Robin, Grant Morrison memories), but it remembers that Dick's whole history is what defines him, perhaps more than any other superhero.  Possibly the two best issues of Nightwing I've ever read (Grayson: Futures End notwithstanding).

Savage Dragon #223 (Image)
If you were to read, in 2017, only one comic book series in its entirety to figure out what superheroes are all about, I think Savage Dragon would have to be that series.  Erik Larsen is the Image creator who never gave up on the original vision of the company, who never decided to pursue other interests at the expense of the creative freedom and opportunity his vision gave him.  The letters column is almost more important than the comic itself this time:

"Change is inevitable and being more stuck in the past is no solution. Styles change, people change. You loved that old stuff because you were 12 and that was your sweet spot. You may not want change but I crave it. Doing the same drawings the same way for decades is mind-numbingly monotonous. I love nothing more than finding new ways of tackling a similar problem. I look at the older issues and see all the mistakes. I see all the poor drawings and attempts to hide my deficiencies behind a wall of crosshatching and it doesn't do much for me. The lines aren't defining shapes and establishing light sources. They're lines for the sake of lines. Emulating that seems insane. 

Strong iconic poses are great, sure, but ultimately, I'm trying to tell a story here, not compose pictures to be popped onto T-shirts and lunchboxes. And given the choice of repeating a familiar shot or finding something new--nine times out of ten I'll go with the new.

It's not an easy path. Some artists get stuck in a rut, forever repeating and emulating their old work. Readers get bored and move on. Others keep trying new and different approaches but that can alienate old readers who liked the way things had been. There's no simple solution, clearly, but in order to preserve my sanity, I need to keep moving. If I'm not kept engaged, I can't expect my audience to be. If I'm bored, it's reflected in the work. So I tend to try something new. Sometimes it's successful and sometimes it's not, but hopefully it's worth your attention. 

And honestly, it's important to unlearn what you've learned. A lot of what made earlier work vibrant and full of life was the learning process. I was figuring stuff out. And part of that involved screwing up. I can look back at old art and see where arms were clearly too long or faces were constructed poorly, where compositions and anatomy and perspective are all skewed and line work makes no sense. It's hard to recreate that--and why would I want to? It would be like going back to high school."

To my mind, it reads like Larsen becoming the Bill Watterson of comic books.

Superman #22 (DC)
I really need to read more of this run.

Old Man Logan #22 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire continues his concluding run with Wolverine exploring the character's fictional past, brilliantly, literally revisiting famous stories (at one point his origin in the pages of a Hulk comic, complete with the original dialogue).  If anyone had to tell Old Man Logan stories as a surrogate to actual Wolverine stories, I'm glad it was Lemire.  He proves why it was such a good idea all over again.

Reading Comics 148 "Grayson"

via Gotham Spoilers

So the jury on Grayson continues.

Generally, I'm wildly excited for the potential of this series, as demonstrated in the phenomenal Futures End one-shot, a bold new, deliberate approach to the further adventures of Dick Grayson that finally exploits the character's full potential, unencumbered by whatever identity he happens to be taking.  For such a man, now free to take whichever one he needs, it's the greatest gift imaginable.

The first issue I read recently was Grayson #6, the latest one, featuring a one-on-one confrontation with Midnighter, the WildStorm character who's a facsimile of Batman.  And clearly Tim Seeley and Tom King keyed in on that, because the Midnighter in the issue is all gruff, the Batman of Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder (I'm one of a token few who loved that project, and hope Jim Lee can find time in his schedule to finish it).  But as I've feared, the regular series doesn't have as much as the pizzazz, so far, as the outliers that keep showcasing its potential.

Such as the Futures End issue, and Grayson Annual #1, which I resisted reading initially because I feared it would be similar to the series.  But it's a lot like the Futures End spot, clever and focused and an all-around fantastic read, and perhaps not coincidentally featuring a good spotlight for Helena Bertinelli, the erstwhile Huntress.  These are two characters Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson helped tie together intrinsically in a previous DC universe, and so it was always nice to see them together again.  A Grayson free from any other obvious association should always be with a Bertinelli.

I've made this point before, but Grayson has much of its allure for me based on nostalgic memories of the TV show Alias, where Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn had similar chemistry.  The Spyral case is like Dick and Helena's Rambaldi.  

I'll be keeping tabs for sure.

Grayson #3 (DC)

writer: Tim Seeley, Tom King
artist: Mikel Janin

via Comic Vine

So this is my first regular issue of the series.  After the intriguing preview in the last issue of Nightwing from Tim Seeley and Tom King and then the brilliant Futures End edition, I decided to give it a shot despite reservations that it might not as an ongoing experience work as well as I might hope.

Now I'm thinking, what was I thinking?

I love spy capers.  Alias remains one of my all-time favorite TV series, and as it turns out, Grayson reads a lot like that (minus Rambaldi), especially in the early days when Sydney Bristow was still trying to figure out loyalties.

And I also realized something about Grayson.  It's actually a lot like one of my favorite storylines from Dick Grayson's past.  It involves another Grayson, Devin K. Grayson, her "Renegade" arc from the Infinite Crisis era (which is more or less the secret origin of what happened to Dick in Forever Evil and this subsequent reboot, which makes it all the more appropriate).  In that arc, Dick went undercover for an extended period of time.  It was gangster stuff, but still the same general idea.

Seeley and King seemed to understand from the start that Dick's sense of identity is fluid, although he himself remains constant under all his guises.  The point is, he's a character who can handle different personas, whether it's Robin, Nightwing, Batman, or an agent of Spyral.  It's the conflict this always brings him, his ongoing identity crisis, that defines Dick best of all.  It's inevitable that at some point he'll stop being a spy, but it's suddenly such a smart move to have finally moved him past his Nightwing days, that it's surprising to realize all those years where I knew subconsciously the character had grown stagnant led to this moment.

Will most issues feature one-off villains like the guy in this one who uses his guns as his eyes?  I guess I'll see (heh).

Grayson: Futures End #1 (DC)

writer: Tom King, Tim Seeley
artist: Stephen Mooney

via Comic Newbies

An instant classic.  Best single issue I'll read all year.  The Dick Grayson story I've been waiting to read for years.

Need I go on?

The idea of Futures End, whether considering the weekly series itself or the September one-shots, is to present a portrait of the DC landscape five years in the future.  In the weekly series, it's a catastrophe that needs to be undone.  In the one-shots it's a glimpse at where everyone ends up.

Since the New 52 launch four years ago, September has been the best time to be a fan of DC.  The first September was the launch of the initial wave of fifty-two new series, the second a look at everyone's origins, the third a month dedicated to villains.  Every time it's a chance to reconnect with the characters themselves, take a wide view of their activities.  In essence, September is the absolute best opportunity for me to catch my favorite kind of storytelling.

And this year, that happened within the pages of Grayson.  Since the final issue of Nightwing saw Tom King and Tim Seeley take their first stab at defining the career of Dick Grayson, I've been hopeful that these were the writers who would finally do justice to the character.  There have been others in the past who have done excellent work with the character, but few have been as interested in exploring the character in the same way countless creators have, say, Superman or Batman.  I know, Dick Grayson no matter what he's called can't be argued to be Superman or Batman.  I mean, only Superman and Batman are, right?  But Dick's been around for about as long as they have.  He also holds the distinction of making permanent leaps of development into new roles, something no other character has been able to do.  He went from Robin the Boy Wonder, Batman's sidekick, to leader of the Teen Titans, to Nightwing, to a solo career, and several stints as Batman.  And now he's Dick Grayson, undercover as an agent of SPYRAL, the premise behind Grayson itself.

So far I haven't read a regular issue of Grayson.  I've heard some good things about it, but every time I have a look it seems Dick is in the midst of a spy adventure, which is fine.  I'd probably like it just fine, considering it's the last vestige of Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated.  But over the years, I've developed a real fear of writers wasting Dick on adventures that ultimately mean nothing to the character, a trend that began after some truly excellent material from Chuck Dixon and Devin K. Grayson.  After Dick was scheduled to die in the pages of Infinite Crisis, DC lost its nerve with the character.  Other than the last stint as Batman, Dick has been completely directionless.  And then he was singled out as the victim in Forever Evil, had his superhero identity stolen away, and ended up thrown off the deep end.

The Futures End one-shot changes everything.  It's the story that finally tells the story of Dick's life, all of it.  Even if the destination ends up being something that never actually happens, that's not really the point.  The particulars don't matter.  It's the story, and the effort to make a cohesive thru-line for everything Dick has done.  King and Seeley skewer heavily toward his later solo adventures, and naturally the context of Grayson itself, and this works incredibly well.  Helena Bertinelli, the erstwhile Huntress, has considerable history with Dick, so it's nice to see her so important to the story, at last, in this version of events, the permanent romantic foil he's been searching for his whole publication history (Dixon had a few ideas, and of course there was also Starfire in the Titans days and Batgirl, a notion that's been danced around for so long it's actually lost its appeal).  Helena was always the contrasting figure who challenged Dick best, and nowhere is that more evident than in this one-shot.  Their interactions force Dick to remember the signal moments of his career, incidental ones that represent the impermanence of his life, how he was living it even before becoming Robin, as a circus performer.

The brilliance of the story might be blunted in some eyes by the gimmick of unfolding it backwards, but I've always liked that idea, and it's done perfectly anyway, even with a nice cylindrical nature to it.  There's a command to the whole thing that's rare in storytelling anywhere, let alone comics featuring superheroes.  This is very deliberate stuff, not plodding but calculated, that rewards repeat reading (demands it, in some respects, depending how much you follow initially). 

If the series as a whole is as good as this, I'll probably be adding Grayson to the growing list of series to read in trade collection format, because it seems as if it's another experience that would greatly benefit from that style.  Hopefully King and Seeley stick around for a while, get as far along the Futures End narrative as they can, because they've proven a long-term and enduring benefit to Dick's current role, how it fits in with his whole history, enhances it.  I wouldn't mind their doing side projects exploring his past a little more, either.

But the beauty of it is that even if that doesn't happen, this one-shot still exists, and it already does all that, and it has a great deal of fun in the process, something that's been missing from the character for too long.  It's a perfect single issue, and thankfully King and Seeley were smart enough to realize that the Futures End month gave them such an opportunity.  I don't know if they already had ideas like this percolating for the series or if the prompt forced them to this creative peak.  It doesn't matter.  It happened, and it's the new high-water mark for Dick Grayson stories.

Nightwing #30 (DC)

writer: Tim Seeley, Tom King
artist: Javier Garron, Jorge Lucas, Mikel Janin

via Bleeding Cool

Among the many fake controversies to be found recently on the Internet was the one surrounding the final issue of Nightwing (this one).  Apparently there's a whole alternate, original version that exists and does the elegiac, retrospective, reverent look that fans might have wanted to see otherwise, and this one has been seen a crude patchwork, poor substitute.

Yeah.

I'll admit, it's not a perfect issue.  But it's a far better one than it could have been.  As you may or may not know, Dick Grayson ended up being a pivotal player during Forever Evil after he was kidnapped by the bad guys and exposed to the world as being the face behind the domino mask of Nightwing.  By the end, he "died."  Not in the typical comic book fashion.  More like a cliffhanger.  In the final issue of the crossover event, he was alive and hardy.

And repositioned.  And so his ongoing series, Nightwing, was cancelled, and was just relaunched as Grayson.

Dick Grayson was originally introduced in 1940's Detective Comics #38.  He is of course the original Robin, Batman's sidekick, the Boy Wonder.  Over the years his role has evolved.  He was the original reader surrogate, the Spider-Man prototype if you will.  Eventually he struck out on his own, starting when he helped form the Teen Titans.  In the '80s he adopted a new superhero identity, Nightwing, and a new costume.  In the '90s he donned the cowl of Batman for the first time.  He was scheduled to die in Infinite Crisis.  Grant Morrison had him reprise his time as Batman.  And now this.

I've long been a fan of the character, thanks to Burt Ward's depiction in the classic '60s TV show.  (Holy glove-fidgeting, Batman!)  I was too young and unfamiliar with the actual comics at the time to know it wasn't Dick who was killed off in "A Death in the Family."  I was devastated when I saw the news in the paper.  I wondered why he wasn't in Tim Burton's Batman.

And, eventually, I thrilled when Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel launched the first Nightwing ongoing comic.  I loved that run.  I loved Devin K. Grayson's run.  And I wondered why it was so hard for subsequent creators to sync up with Dick the way Chuck and Devin had.  When the New 52 came around and Kyle Higgins launched the next Nightwing ongoing comic, I thought someone had finally figured it out.  And for a brief moment, he had.

And...so it reached the point where Dickwas once again expendable.  Or, malleable.  A trait that has become perhaps Dick Grayson's defining characteristic.  The ability to be "who you need me to be."

That's from this issue, by the way, those very words, the final ones of this final issue.  It's not a perfect summation.  It's something a character in transition would say in lieu of something more definitive.  But that's what's unique about Dick.  He's an icon who's free to evolve.  Always looking for that chance to define his legacy.  All over again.  Because he's always changing, it's hard to think of him in the same way one does, say, Batman or Spider-Man.

That lost version of Nightwing #30 might have been that statement.  Who knows?  What I love about this version is that it's a final issue that actually speaks to the next issue.  Directly.  You have no idea how rarely that happens.  Is this actually the first time?  Correct me here, folks.

So often, the final issue of a series, or sometimes just a creative run, is self-reflective, self-referential.  Most of the time it's be a different creative team than the one that was last best known, and is incongruous.  Or dismissive.  What have you.

You will note the absence of Kyle Higgins in the credits.  No Chicago (Dick's last context prior to this and/or Forever Evil).  I don't have notable history reading Tim Seeley or Tom King, both of whom write Grayson, along with artist Mikel Janin.  They're all here.  A lot of the issue is representing the new context, Dick as an undercover agent infiltrating a criminal organization known as Spyral.  His new context is being a spy.  Actually, it's not terribly different from Devin K. Grayson's Renegade arc (so there's even precedence!).

There's also Batman beating the stuffing out of Dick.  And Dick fighting back.  We get Dick's version of the mission statement Christopher Nolan had Bruce Wayne's father give him in Batman Begins ("And why do we fall, Bruce?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up."):

"We fall because someone pushes us.  We get up to push back."

I consider this a pretty good time to be a fan of Dick Grayson.  I think the more DC's writers are forced to think about him and work with him, rather than merely write more adventures (which is what it might seem they're doing now), the better he is.  So I'm happy that an issue like this exists.  I'm happy that it tries to reconcile the present with the past.  I'm happy that the ending is the same as the beginning.

But I'm strange like that.