[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here. Find part one of this month's Pull List here.]

Spotlight

Wonder Woman #3

It’s relatively easy to point curious new readers to quintessential Batman and Superman stories, but far less so with Wonder Woman. I’ve always found this odd, considering the character’s rather high cultural profile—she’s appeared in her own television show, Saturday morning cartoons, the requisite lunch boxes and Halloween costumes. Wonder Woman is everywhere, her popularity easily equal to that of Superman or Batman. So why the dearth of quality Wonder Woman stories?

There are several competing theories. Some argue that the underpinning of light fetishism and sexuality was crucial to the success of Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston’s original stories, and even the conception of the character. Some say that attempts to “clean up” Wonder Woman in the 50s and 60s altered the storytelling engine for the worse. Others claim that Wonder Woman is too remote, or too perfect, and trying to tell human stories about a goddess doesn’t work. And we can’t ignore the reality of gender bias—the men who write and draw the majority of mainstream superhero comics are probably more likely to have a must-tell story about Batman or Superman than Wonder Woman, and DC is more likely to let them tell those stories because the predominantly male readership tends to ignore titles with a female lead (I’m not arguing that female characters can only be written by women, and male characters by men, but I’d wager there are other female creators eager for the chance to tell interesting Wonder Woman stories besides Gail Simone, who recently ended a compelling three-year run on the character. More Wonder Woman stories means a greater likelihood that at least one will be to that character what Batman: Year One and All-Star Superman are to Batman and Superman.)

All of those arguments have merit, and the recently relaunched Wonder Woman title, written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Cliff Chiang, addresses them head-on, with November’s issue three serving as a line in the sand for readers (and, implicitly, other creators.) Revising Wonder Woman’s origin, Azzarello reveals that Diana was not a clay figure molded by her mother, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and given life by the gods, but rather the biological child of Hippolyta and Zeus. Azzarello solves the relatability problem right away by introducing notes of confusion, anger, and sadness to Wonder Woman’s story – she’s no longer just a goddess sent from a utopian society to perfect our world, but rather a person who has been lied to, and who acts out as a result.

That Wonder Woman’s familiar drama is Olympian in nature could be distracting, or worse, boring, if the gods and goddesses were depicted in the ossified, visually inert “toga and beard” style. The reliance on those tropes brought always brought Simone’s stories to a screeching halt, and keeps me from enjoying George Perez’s celebrated post-Crisis run—no matter how poorly or outrageously the gods are behaving, scenes of them standing among marbles columns and arguing read like dull boardroom conversation. Instead Chiang, one of the most inventive and exciting artists working in comics, has redesigned the Greek gods through a Pop Art lens. Hermes, for instance, is tall and thin, with the thick black eyes of a bird and chicken-like legs, while Strife is a glamour girl with lavender skin and a Sinead O’Connor buzz, wearing a shredded black party dress. In their new guises the gods feel volatile and relevant, and Wonder Woman’s place among them and is thus more interesting by extension. In fact, in three issues we’ve seen and heard more from the gods than the title character, who stays mostly quiet and absorbs her surroundings, waiting for the right moment to act.

That moment, as it turns out, is the final pages of issue three when Wonder Woman, having learned of her true parentage, storms through the jungle of Paradise Island and interrupts the beginning of an insurrection led by an Amazon who blames Diana for their heavy battle losses. In a nearly silent sequence Diana slugs the leader and asserts her independence from the island and her heritage. Chiang’s storytelling instincts sell the significance of the moment, particularly the scene spread when she address the crowd—it’s a complex layout, with close-up panels set over a double-page shot of the entire beach scene. It’s grand and moving, and lends a note of finality to the story. If this were the end of a mini-series it’d feel fully developed and satisfying; thankfully, there’s more to look forward to next month.

It’s impossible to say whether this will become the Wonder Woman story, the one that’s collected and continuously reprinted, that shows up on “best of” lists and so on. But Azzarello, a writer I never would’ve pegged for this title, clearly isn’t afraid to restructure the characters foundations, which is a good first step towards crafting an iconic book. It’s that approach that makes Wonder Woman one of the most satisfying reads of DC’s New 52.

…
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here. Find part one of this month's Pull List here.]

In September, DC cleaned house by launching an entirely new slate of books—52 #1 issues, running the genre gamut from superheroes to westerns to horror stories. Because opportunities to start afresh with the entirety of a company’s output are exceedingly rare, and because of my long history with and affection for DC’s stable of characters, I opted to read and review all 52 titles and begin rebuilding my pull list.

I used a three-part scale to sort through the imposing stack of books: pulled means I enjoyed the book and will continue reading it in the months to come, peek means I foundit intriguing but flawed and might give it a second chance to win me over, and pass means I was either uninterested in the story or characters, unmoved by theartistic choices, and in a few cases infuriated by inexplicable editorial decisions. At the end I’ll tally it all up and get a peek at what next month will look like.

The New 52

The reviews are in alphabetical order. Skip to a section by using the handy-dandy table of contents below.

Part 1: Action Comics through Blackhawks (just scroll down)

Part 2: Blue Beetle to Green Lantern: New Guardians

Part 3: Grifter to Red Hood and the Outlaws

Part 4: Red Lanterns to Wonder Woman

The New 52

Part 1

Action Comics #1: Grant Morrison and Rags Morales deliver a brash young Superman more interested in fighting Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein than Brainiac. Worlds away from All-Star Superman, Morrison gives the original superhero a volatility that hasn’t been part of the character’s fictional world for years. This Superman is brash and cocky, and constantly moving around the page. I particularly enjoy Morales’s use of shadow, frequently concealing all of Superman’s face except for glowing red eyes. One of the flagship titles of the new DC, this is shaping up to be a must-read. Pulled, obviously.

All-Star Western #1: The first arc of this psuedo-anthology title features DC’s premiere Western hero Jonah Hex washing up in 19th-century Gotham City to help Jeremiah Arkham investigate a series of grisly murders. Tightly scripted by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray and featuring gorgeous art from Moritat, who won me over with his work on the late Spirit book, this was one of the most satisfying books of the relaunch. Pulled.

Animal Man #1: I’m not especially fond of Animal Man’s redesigned costume, but I liked everything else about this issue. Jeff Lemire strikes right at the character’s heart by focusing on Buddy Baker’s family, then twists the knife by pitting them in the middle of a nightmare scenario. And Travel Foreman’s art is just strange enough to sell the paranormal/horror aspects of the title without veering into incoherence. A genuinely unsettling start to this title. Pulled.

Aquaman #1: Geoff Johns has a reputation as a “rebirth” writer – someone who can give new life to moribund characters. He’s brought frequent collaborator Ivan Reis along to draw his revamp of Aquman, perhaps the most moribund of any superhero, raising the stakes for this title’s success even higher. Luckily, it’s quite good. Johns overuses a gag about how the general public considers Aquaman a useless hero, but nails the reserve and pride that mark the best iterations of the character. Reis’ pencils are strong, and he returns to the unsettling atmospherics of Blackest Night in scenes featuring the toothy creatures from an ocean trench. Pulled. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

[Note: this month's Pull List is split in half---one part featuring the regular column, the other devoted entirely to the full 52-title DC relaunch. Find part two here.]

Spotlight

Mainstream comic books—not graphic novels, but monthly pamphlet comics—usually don’t end in a satisfactory way. There are obviously exceptions (the conclusion of Scott Snyder’s recent Detective Comics run is a good example) but by and large endings, whether of a story arc or an entire title, are rushed, or overly dramatic, or too easily resolved. The publishers own the characters, and are consequently disinclined towards endings that might preclude further adventures; even if Peter Parker decides to put away the web-shooters and retire from superherodom, someone else will come along to take this place.

The on-going titles published under DC’s Vertigo imprint are other notable exceptions. Executive Editor Karen Berger runs the imprint with an indie publisher’s ethic, albeit with the resources of a massive entertainment corporation behind it: take risks, give creators room to tell the stories they want to tell, and respect the readership. When Vertigo books end they do so in a gradual way that respects the integrity of the fictional universes they contain—dangling storylines are attended to, characters are bid farewell, and readers are given the closure they’ve been seeking, whether they knew it or not, since the first issue.

House of Mystery #41

House of Mystery #41 is not technically the last issue of the series—that distinction belongs to October’s issue 42, ajam-issue featuring regular creative team Matthew Sturgess and Lua Rossi plus guests Bill Willingham, Tony Akins, Steven T. Seagle, and Teddy Kristiansen. But issue 41 does bring the story Sturgess has built over the past three years to a close. And true to form for a series that was always very funny except when it was busy breaking your heart, the finale is only happy on the surface.

Having uncovered the nature of the Conception, Fig Keele reenters the titular House (and by proxy the story that she is writing), to give all the major characters the ultimate end of their stories, in the guise of scripts that she’s written. Reading these scenes I’m reminded of Grant Morrison’s “fiction suit,” a narrative device that operates like a diving rig, allowing the writer to visit the fictional world of his creation. Fig is Sturgess in fiction suit drag, adopting the guise of his character (as he seems to have done for the past five or so issues) to meet the others face to face, and possibly exorcise a little authorial guilt.

Guilt and blame have been recurring themes throughout House of Mystery so it’s no surprise to find that none of the endings (with the exception of the Goblin King’s) is entirely happy or sad—none of the characters (again, except for the Goblin King) are entirely good or bad. It’s somewhat galling to find that Lotus Blossom marries Fig’s true love Harry, but it’s worth remembering that mean-spirited and aggressive isn’t the same as evil; and I was sad to read that Anne ends up alone, until I remembered her single-mindedness in seeking to pluck the deceased Poet from a point earlier in his timeline, despite all warnings that it wouldn’t end well. Even the ending Fig writes for herself, ostensibly the happiest of the bunch, is just slightly pathetic and indulgent.

Series artist Luca Rossi contributes some of his finest art of the entire run in this issue. His gift for expressions and mood suits Sturgess’s ending structure, underlining the pathos in every scene. Take Anne’s distant gazing at the sea in the final panel of page seven, or Fig’s pained shying away from Harry in the fourth panel of page seventeen—each moving, but in subtly different ways. There are only a few artists I’ll follow from book to book, regardless of writer or character, but Luca Rossi has quickly joined those ranks.

I almost don’t want to read issue 42. No matter how Sturgess approaches that final issue, I can’t imagine it’ll be as elegant and apropos as this one. I will read it, obviously, and I bet it’ll be a fun issue considering the talent involved. But this charming, wrenching, quiet, most of all humane ending is the only ending I need. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

[Note: this month's Pull List is mondo-big, so it'll be broken up into three pieces. This is the third part. Part one is here, part two is here.]

Farewells

On the eve of the DC relaunch I thought it appropriate to say goodbye to the titles I read regularly from the publisher. Some of them will return in a month as new #1s, while others are slated for relaunch towards the end of the year. Still others seem to be gone for good – two of which are among my favorite books of the year (one of which is Xombi, this month’s Spotlight book).

Batman and Robin #26

Batman and Robin concludes a solid run with issue twenty-six, written by David Hine and drawn by Greg Tocchini and Andrei Bressan. I wasn’t too fond of Tocchini’s work in previous issues of this title, but it seems more appropriate to Hine’s reverie for Dada and Surrealism. Bressan’s style doesn’t match Tocchini’s at all, and the dual artist approach suggests that this was rushed in at the last minute while other creators worked on the relaunch books. Hine deserves better – I hope there’s room for his absurdist take on superheroes at DC in the months to come. And I’m excited for Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason’s return to the title next month. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

[Note: this month's Pull List is mondo-big, so it'll be broken up into three pieces. Here's the second part. Here's part one.]

Solid Reads

Secret Avengers #16

With Secret Avengers #16 Warren Ellis once again smuggles a sharp critique of superheroes inside of a frothy, expertly crafted adventure story (see also Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis, my Spotlight pick for February 2011) Ellis makes the most of the Secret Avengers concept, telling a story that’s relatively quiet and takes place in an abandoned city several miles underground  – Captain America and his team (Beast, who Ellis portrays as a neurotic, motor-mouth nerd, plus Moon Knight, and Black Widow) infiltrate the facility, drive around in a nuclear-powered Cadillac, and stop the bad guys (a classic faceless evil organization) from teleporting Cincinnati off the face of the planet. That quiet, offbeat tone is complemented by artist Jamie McKelvie’s backgrounds, which are starkly beautiful in a Michelangelo Antonioni sort of way—his double-page spread of Moon Knight soaring over the empty cityscape is breathtaking. Of course, McKelvie is equally adept at framing exciting action sequences, most of which are packed into the final third of the issue. Ellis saves the didacticism for the very end—it’s devastating, so I won’t give it away here—Beast’s notes of regret just make it all the more compelling. Apparently Secret Avengers is just going to be one-and-done stories by Ellis and a rotation of artists—I’d be happier with more from McKelvie every month, but I’m on board regardless. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Note: this month’s Pull List is mondo-big, so it’ll be broken up into three pieces. Here’s the first part.

Spotlight

Back in March when I first wrote about Xombi, I noted that the title’s future was uncertain at best, given the state of the market and the limited readership for an oddball sci-fi/adventure title. Six months later, it turns out my suspicions were correct—Xombi #6 marks the end of the series. I’ll always want more, but if Xombi has to end, I’m glad it ended like this.

Writer John Rozum gives all of the major characters their spotlight moment in the final battle against Finch; Catholic Girl fights off a squad of flying monocular robots, Nun the Less sabotages the Ninth Stronghold’s defenses, Julian fights off a trio of blood mummies. Naturally, David and Annie get the most glory as they outsmart Finch (thanks in part to a literal pearl of wisdom – Rozum clearly enjoys working wordplay into the fabric of his story’s world) and restore the stronghold to its original state. Rozum brings the various plot threads together neatly, which wouldn’t be much of an accomplishment for a six-issue series, except that every one has been packed with characters and concepts. Rozum can’t help himself even in the final issue, introducing monstrous adversaries like the Blood Mummies (female mummies with both internal and external circulatory systems who are covered in silk bandages created by the spiders that constantly patrol their bodies and wield weapons that change based on the phase of the moon) and Dental Phantoms. As much as I’ll miss the characters, I’ll miss Rozum’s wit and inventiveness even more.

That said, the real strength of this issue is not the humor or the resolution of the invasion plot, but rather the completion of David’s emotional arc. When the series began David was struggling with his place in the world, having recently become the Xombi. In issue six, presented with an opportunity to live with a beautiful girl in a perfect world among other people who will age just as slowly as he will, David opts instead to stay on Earth with his friends, to cope with his difference rather than hide from his fate. The sequence is rendered beautifully—artist Frazer Irving again makes use of floating heads for extended dialogue, relying on facial expressions alone to sell Annie’s disappointment and David’s brief moment of doubt before saying goodbye.

Thanks to Irving, Xombi is easily one of the best looking books of the year. His frames glow with otherworldly color, and his framing frequently breaks out of the standard grid approach, appropriate for the rich, unusual world the characters live in. Irving strikes a delicate balance between a kind of cartoonish expressionism and realistic detail, making the wildest of Rozum’s ideas seem plausible. I don’t always need, or even want, my comics to look real, but I enjoy the playful tension in Irving’s possible/impossible approach.

As far as we know, there’s no future for Xombi in the DC relaunch. But given the company’s new interest in non-superhero titles, there’s at least a chance that the publisher will bring Rozum and Irving together again. If not, then at least we have six issues worth of storytelling that was never once missed its mark.