Spotlight

Saga #2

Had last month’s column not been waylaid by end of semester chaos and other roadblocks to productivity it would’ve featured Saga #1, from Image Comics, as my Spotlight read. That I’ve selected Saga #2 as my Spotlight book for April shouldn’t be read as a consolation prize, or a way to make up for last month; I would’ve happily celebrated the first ever back-to-back Spotlight pick for the Pull List, had last month gone according to plan. It’s a brilliant title, unlike anything else on the shelves and well worth discussing at length. And if it’s brilliant again next month and I have to rename this column “Saga and Some Other Comics” then so be it.

What Saga does best is open up the science fiction adventure story, filling it with ideas and trusting to reader to follow along. Whereas a lot of sci-fi comics follow the Blade Runner model, where the entire fictional world seems to grow out of a single design choice, Saga feels more like Star Wars, filled with weird creatures and technologies that don’t necessarily make sense together but we accept them as a whole because the story never stops to let us figure out how the giant gangster slug fits with the admiral who looks like a prawn. The characters in Saga (and Star Wars and Blade Runner, for that matter) are rich and complex enough that I don’t really care about the how – I only want to know what they’ll do next, and what the consequences of their actions will be.

Saga’s main story concerns Marko and Alana, alien soldiers from opposite sides of a war who have fallen in love and deserted. Saga #1 opens with Alana giving birth in hiding, just before the pair are tracked down by Alana’s former confederates. They escape, and begin searching for something called the Rocketship Forest that they hope will take them far away from the war where they can raise their daughter in peace. Along the way we meet Coalition officers with humanoid bodies and televisions for heads, giant turtles with laser eyes, and bounty hunters with names like The Will and The Stalk, the latter of which is the principle threat in issue two. Alana and Marko are also humanoid, but are distinguished by a pair of wings and a set of ram’s horns, respectively, which are the unique characteristics of their particular races. Writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples understand that a well-constructed story will sweep that quantity of detail along and use it to set-up even more sophisticated plot points, and that readers are more likely to appreciate the richness of everything than to complain that everything and everyone looks too weird.

All of that oddity would mean nothing if the characters weren’t relatable and interesting, though. Marko is an awkward new parent, nervously optimistic about their chances of escaping the war but also slightly a bit of a bumbler, while Alana is more collected and pessimistic. When The Stalk (a bounty hunter with a forked, weaponized tongue) stabs Marko and tells Fiona to hand over the child, Alana points a stun gun not at the monster, but at her own daughter, deadpanning that she’ll do anything to keep her away from the powers that are hunting her family. Even The Stalk is shocked, and as a reader I found myself in the strange situation of relating to the ruthless professional killer. So far, Saga is made up almost entirely of quiet character moments like that, with a smattering of action sequences mixed in. When the action does inevitably pick up, the stakes will be even greater because we’ve come to care about Marko, Alana, and even baby Hazel, who narrates the story from some point in the future.

Outside of the clever plotting and rich character work, Saga is notable in that it represents Vaughan’s return to comics. A critical darling of the 2000s, who built a loyal fan following around titles like Y: the Last Man, Runaways, and Ex Machina, Vaughan was celebrated for his deep plotting and dynamic characters, which made him a natural to make the transition to screenwriting, most notably three seasons writing for Lost. It’s too early to speculate about how that time away might’ve changed his writing, but nevertheless it’s good to have a gifted writer, especially one capable of drawing a non-traditional comics audience, working in the medium.

That said, the star of this series is clearly Staples. She broke through with Mystery Society (written by Steve Niles) in 2010, but Saga is the first in hopefully a string of high-profile gigs for the artist. Her linework is a bit sketchy but still clear, and suited to rendering all of the detail necessary for the kind of world-building she and Vaughan are up to. Staples particularly excels in acting – her characters are expressive, not only in their faces but in postures and gestures. When Prince Robot IV enters in issue two he is upright, striding as his position would dictate, but as soon as he learns something new about Alana his confidence is shaken and he takes this stance, somewhere between petulant defiance and a slouch, that tells us everything about Prince Robot in a single panel.

Staples’s backgrounds don’t quite grab me, though. They’re rendered digitally, and appear hazy and soft, whereas the foreground figures (also, I suspect, rendered digitally) are clear and defined, outlined in black lines. The result is a cel-animation feel, which is interesting in some ways but seems to rob the story of some of its depth and richness.

I never would’ve suspected this would happen, but Image Comics has been slowly taking over my pull list in the past few months. I’m reading more Image titles than ever, and gradually dropping Marvel and DC books. I still enjoy superhero titles, but I’m finding that books like Saga are making me all the more excited to visit my local store (Boston’s Comicopia) every Wednesday.

Solid Reads

The Manhattan Projects #2

Speaking of Image’s ascendance, The Manhattan Projects #2 by the Red Wing team of writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Pitarra, was very nearly the Spotlight pick. Hickman seems to be throwing all of his Big Science ideas into this title, which is a “what if” story about the real Manhattan Project, but peopled with comic-ified versions of historical figures. For instance, the man posing as Robert Oppenheimer is actually his schizophrenic evil twin, who murdered and cannibalized the original Oppenheimer and is now tormented constantly by the good and evil sides of himself. Harry Daghlian, a physicist who was accidentally irradiated in an accident at Los Alamos, appears as a radioactive skeleton contained in a yellow body suit with a glass dome head, his skull peering through. Issue two introduces Richard Feynman as the everyman, reader-access character, relatively normal (outside of being a super genius physicist) and tossed in with a lot of other brilliant mad men, all working with the military to develop super-science weapons. Hickman has a good feeling for comedy, and is able to play Feynman’s discovery of a roomful of dead Nazi scientists for both fright and laughter. Artist Nick Pitarra’s craft has grown from his work on The Red Wing, with even stronger, more expressive characters and framing techniques. This book could easily be very heavy and dense, but Hickman’s casual attitude towards the mad concepts makes it a lot of fun, well worth picking up.

Secret #1

Yet another Hickman/Image Comics collaboration, Secret launched this month. Where The Manhattan Projects is anarchic, Silver Age madness, Secret is much more of the moment. Its protagonists are high-dollar security contractors who do business with Goldman, Sachs types, and who are apparently gaming them by playing both sides of the threat/solution equation. This first issue features well-structured storytelling with a nice final-act reveal, and Ryan Bodenheim’s pencils are solid, but it feels just a little flat. I was more interested in Michael Garland’s color scheme than in the story – he color-codes the entire issue, so that distinct plot elements are rendered in green, or yellow, or purple. I haven’t put it together yet, and perhaps it’ll turn out that it’s more about feeling than encoding, but it’s still a provocative choice. I’ll give Secret #2 a shot next month, but if I had to choose between them Manhattan Projects is the obvious winner.

Dynamite Entertainment is something of a licensed-property warehouse, so it’s no surprise that The Shadow found a comic book home there. The pairing of the character with writer Garth Ennis, best known for titles like Preacher, Hitman, and Punisher, is inspired. I wouldn’t necessarily have pegged Lamont Cranston as a typical hyper-violent Ennis hero, but the cruel wit certainly fits. And Ennis is more than capable of dialing down his id to craft slow-burn stories that make the ensuing violence more meaningful. The opening scene of The Shadow #1 is pitch perfect – The Shadow interrupts a gang and explains that he is only concerned with two men he has some connection with, but ends up slaughtering the entire lot when they resist. It begins with the feeling of a radio drama, lots of speech making and dramatic framing courtesy of artist Aaron Campbell, but quickly descends into grindhouse territory. The rest of the issue is plot set-up and features Cranston in his gadabout disguise, aloof with acquaintances, and downright remote with a loved one. I find Campbell’s inking too heavy for the quieter scenes, but they give the nighttime action sequence a proper theatrical feel. I’m on this for at least the first arc, hopefully more if the quality stays this high.

Grant Morrison brings his first Action Comics arc to a close with issue eight. Scheduling hurt the pacing of this title – the two previous issues told an excellent Morrisonian time-travel story but didn’t seem to directly impact the story of Superman saving Metropolis from the Collector (a.k.a. Brainiac) – but Morrision still brings the story of Clark Kent becoming Superman to a satisfying end. He even manages a somewhat reasonable explanation for the terrible new costume design (though if you squint you can almost pretend it’s the classic design – you know, the one that was perfect and didn’t need to be updated). What I’ve always liked best about Morrison’s Superman is how he saves the day not by punching his way through swarms of enemies, though there is sometimes a bit of that, but rather by being smarter and more humane than his opponent. It’s all over All-Star Superman, and shows up again in Action when Superman defeats Brainiac by using the rocket that delivered him from Krypton to Earth, miniaturized in the villain’s plot, as a micro-bullet. Where the issue falls down is the art – there’s a platoon of pencilers and inkers on this title, and from page to page the character designs are erratic. This is no one’s best work, not even Morrison’s, but it delivers on the promise of the initial issues and, better still, puts pieces on a game board for Morrison to play with in the months to come.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents vol. 2 #6

Finally, we say goodbye to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents with issue six of the second volume. Issue two of the first volume was one of my first Spotlight picks, and I’ve enjoyed this book every step of the way. Writer Nick Spencer takes a lot of deserved criticism for excessively slow pacing, but the second volume was largely free of that issue. He built a conspiracy plot about the Underworld war and used it to reveal the weaknesses in the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. concept, thereby allowing his government-agent characters to effectively rebel against their masters. Following Toby’s death in last month’s issue, Colleen goes rogue, first taking revenge by killing the SPIDER agents who set them up, and then allowing No-Man to destroy T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s central computer in a suicide mission. Spencer closes everyone’s story, and even allows Toby a final say via a “final letter from the dead” scene that could’ve been obvious and cliché but, instead, turns the story on its head and offers a moving final line. Both CAFU and Wes Craig, series artists for the first and second volumes, respectively, are on hand to usher the story out, and both do typically excellent work. Michael Uslan and Trevor McCarthy’s Undersea Agent back-up story is tonally on a different planet than the main story, and I wish DC had let that be a digital offering, or a bonus for the trade. But ignore those pages, and this is a perfect ending.

One-Shots

Saying that All-Star Western #8 is paced extraordinarily well seems like faint praise, but it’s a feat that writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray are able to weave three storylines together so well, pushing the story along without giving any of the plots short shrift.

Buddy Baker finally gets angry in the emotionally draining Animal Man #8 and which features a violent scene that’s only slightly less disturbing than young Maxine’s brutal death and resurrection – this is one of very few comics not afraid to overwhelm the reader from time to time.

The Court of Owls brings the fight to Wayne Manor in Batman #8, and though writer Scott Snyder gives Bruce plenty of action in the main story, he saves the best moments of the issue for the back-up featuring art by his American Vampire partner, Rafael Albuquerque.

Writer Peter Tomasi brings the slightly long-in-the-tooth Nobody arc to a close in Batman and Robin #8, and while I think it was somewhat unnecessary to pour yet more blood on Damian’s hands, I did appreciate the father/son moments at the end, and particularly the last panel of Damian and Bruce running after the bat-signal.

Amy Reeder’s art in Batwoman #8 is as good as ever, but the story is slowing down, and the gimmick of following six plots at once and weaving back and forth in the timeline that seemed fun in the first issue of this arc has become a bit dull – Reeder’s impending departure from the title makes it even easier to drop this title next month.

I bid a fond farewell to Blackhawks with issue eight – not a perfect comic, but writer Mike Costa was developing interesting characters and had finally found a sympathetic art partner in CAFU just as the title was canceled. It’s a credit to both creators that they eased the story to a conclusion rather than burning through a few meaningless issues just to be done with it.

Captain Atom continues to cover surprisingly emotional territory with issue eight, which sends the Captain into the future and raises questions about morality, responsibility, and identity.

Catwoman #8 is a fine story with fill-in art by Adriana Melo, but the title suffers without series artist Guillem March and writer Judd Winick doesn’t do much to hide the fact that he’s just marking time before the big Batman crossover begins next month.

Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan wrap up their adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “Queen of the Black Coast” story with issue 3 of Conan the Barbarian, which matches the previous issue’s savagery with a bit of introspection as Conan finally gives in to Belit’s unique charms.

Daredevil shipped twice this month, but neither issue demonstrates the title’s usual strength – issue 10.1 is one of Marvel’s infamous “catch-up” issues that are meant to draw in new readers, and issue 11 is the third part of a crossover with The Punisher and Avenging Spider-Man. Mark Waid writes both issues, and both are good stories but 10.1 gets the upper hand on 11 thanks to guest art from Koi Pham, who does a remarkable Paolo Rivera impression in these pages.

I dove once more into the Dark Horse Presents pool in April, picking up issue 11 because I wanted to sample Francesco Francavilla “Black Beetle”, which was excellent. I also enjoyed Evan Dorkin’s “Milk and Cheese” strips, another installment of Carla Speed McNeil’s “Finder,” and John Arcudi and Jonathan Cases’s “The Creep.” And yes, Neal Adams’s “Blood” remains a regular feature, and yes, it’s still awful.

Demon Knights #8 is another catch-your-breath character-focus issue, this time exploring Madame Xanadu and her convoluted relationship with Jason Blood and his alter-ego, the demon Etrigan – writer Paul Cornell makes it into a game, telling the “truth” one way, then doubling back to tell the exact opposite, leaving us no closer to an understand of what Xanadu is up to, but a greater appreciation for the complexity of her character.

It’s getting a bit redundant to comment on the horrific elements of an issue of Fatale, since they’re all grisly and terrifying, but it’s worth singling out how artist Sean Phillips frames the murder that closes issue four, and how the victim’s expression is more upsetting than any of the blood spilled in this series so far.

The Flash #8 gets deeper into the mechanics of the Speed Force, but I was more impressed with how the story cuts back to reality to explore how Barry’s social life falls apart when he’s stuck in the other dimension; it’s a rare superhero comic that acknowledges the passing of time that way.

Irredeemable #36 is the penultimate issue of the series, and while it focuses on a last showdown between the Plutonian and Quibit, there are still other plots in the works that writer Mark Waid will have to bleed into next month’s finale in order for the story to pay off. Meanwhile, Incorruptible #28 is the second to last issue, but offers a much clearer sense of how the story will end – in each case Waid is being a bit coy, but that’s been his inclination in these books to begin with.

Justice League #8 is easily the most entertaining issue of the series so far, as writer Geoff Johns plays with reader expectations by telling a jokey story about Green Arrow’s attempts to join the league; the real treat, however, is the short epilogue about the Martian Manhunter drawn by Ivan Reis that demonstrates how provocative and surprising the New 52 reboot can be, even eight issues in.

The action sequences in Peter Panzerfaust #3 are briskly paced and effective, and, if the introductions of Captain Hook (a Nazi officer, naturally) and Wendy into the story are a little too on-the-nose, it’s a minor complaint for a consistently fun title.

Tom Taylor and Colin Wilson’s wartime story in Rocketeer Adventures 2 #2 is the highlight of the issue, and probably of this volume so far, but there’s also fun to be had in Paul Dini’s story about Betty’s acting career, and Walt Simonson’s Judy Garland fanfic.

Saucer Country #2 is a little less elliptical than the first issue, and is structured more like a soap opera than I’d anticipated – I think that’s in the story’s favor.

The Shade #7 wraps up the second major arc with a big action sequence that takes a turn towards the melancholy in the middle, as Shade’s feelings of regret and guilt and loss allow him to fully utilize his powers in a stunning sequence made all the more affecting courtesy of Javier Pulido’s art.

The details of exactly what happened on Mars that led Orson to his current state become clearer in Spaceman #6, which also includes a heartbreaking moment when Orson and the orphans he’s befriended craft a plan not to become rich and famous, but just to be part of a loving family.

I decided not to drop Stormwatch after Paul Cornell left the book because I wanted to see what other writers could do with the characters – Paul Jenkins’ brief fill-in run, which concludes this month with issue eight, was fine but not extraordinary, and I suppose I’ll give incoming writer Peter Milligan a shot before I let it go.

Artist Yanick Paquette revels in the chaos and violence of Swamp Thing #8, which follows up on last month’s promise that the transformed Alec Holland would bring war to the Rot.

Brian Azzarello’s and Cliff Chiang’s vision of Hell in Wonder Woman #8 is a psychological-horror take on London that genuinely gave me the creeps – I would never have imagined Wonder Woman as the ideal character for a horror book, but Azzarello makes it work by placing her in this realm of gods that’s ruled by emotion and impulse, and therefore difficult to process.

Looking Ahead to May

Night of the Owls begins in earnest, the return of Obama-Superman in Action Comics, and the sure to be stirring conclusion of Irredeemable!

Spotlight

Mondo #1

There is a class divide in the comics community, and there has been for decades. But it’s not between haves and have nots, or red states and blue states; rather, it’s all about “mainstream” versus “ art” comics. Mainstream generally refers to superhero/adventure/fantasy comics published monthly in the 22-page format by one of the major companies (DC and Marvel, obviously, but also Image, Dynamite, Boom!, etc.), while art comics are graphic novels or otherwise whole collections published by Fantagraphics and Top Shelf, or serialized in journals like Mome, Taddle Creek, and McSweeney’s. Art comics are discussed and reviewed on The Comics Journal, mainstream comics are discussed and reviewed on Newsarama. Mainstream comics are produced by a group of writers and artists and are therefore sloppy, while art comics tend to be product of a single creator’s careful attention and concern for the story and art.

Those distinctions are tenuous and permeable – there are comics produced by Marvel and DC that are every bit as exquisitely rendered as something published by Drawn and Quarterly, and there are independent, creator-driven art comics that tell tedious stories with uninspired art. Talking this way doesn’t do much good for anyone who wishes to take comics seriously (another class distinction!). But that doesn’t stop fans, critics, and even industry professionals from ensconcing themselves in one camp or the other. I’m certainly not immune – I strive to be honest with my reading habits and taste in this column, and even a casual browse through each entry reveals that I read a lot of superhero comics every month. I’m not at all embarrassed or ashamed to enjoy superhero comics, but I acknowledge that my choice in reading (and, more importantly, buying) habits says something about what I value.

This division is a self-inflicted wound, and I didn’t think there was much to be done about it until I read Ted McKeever’s Mondo #1. The first of a three-part mini-series published by Image Comics, Mondo #1 is an oversized issue both in page count (40 versus the typical 20) and size (the pages are an inch wider than the standard format), and features a cardstock cover. In presentation it more closely resembles the heft and substance of the European album format, but priced and distributed like a typical issue of a monthly book (in fact, $5 for 40 pages is a better deal than the usual $3 or $4 for 20 pages.) I knew nothing about Mondo before I saw it on the shelf, and picked it up solely because of it stood out on the shelf, but didn’t seem out of place among other titles.

The story and art between the covers lives up to the promise of the format – Mondo was easily the best-looking book I read in February, if not the year so far (and probably 2011 as well). McKeever draws with an intense flexibility – it moves from scratchy and sketchy to intensely specific and detailed, sometimes in the same panel. “Cartoony” is an apt description of his art, but his line isn’t clean and elegant like Darwyn Cooke’s, or Cliff Chiang’s, or other artists who get categorized in the same way. One point of comparison would be Kevin Eastman and the early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, which had the same darkness and rich detail; another is “Liquid Television”, MTV’s animation anthology from the 90s that featured similarly intense, bizarre worlds and loose caricatures (and it’s worth pointing out that several “Liquid Television” segments were derived from the indie comics scene).

And like those “Liquid Television” shorts, Mondo is aggressively bleak, and a bit juvenile. The story follows Catfish Mandu, a meek, harried employee of a nightmarish chicken processing facility, who only communicates through chicken-like clucking. He’s haunted by visions of a demonic chicken, and when one of those visions leads to an accident at the plant he is transformed into a muscled, violent monstrosity, venting his rage at his tormentors by mutilating them. There’s also a subplot about developments on Venice Beach, and one featuring a psychotic young woman named Kitten Kaboodle, but they’re still just surrealistic tangents at this point.

Juvenile doesn’t have to be a bad thing, though, particularly when it’s executed this well. Take the introduction of Kitten Kaboodle – when harassed by a lecherous gas station attendant, she flips and rips his arm off at the elbow. It’s a grotesque moment of ultraviolence, but the gore is expressive, and is reflected in the lettering of the attendant’s scream. And the action is made more effective by the transition from the previous panel, a staggeringly detailed close-up of Kitten’s face, with pursed lips, jagged bangs, and giant, terrifying owl eyes prefiguring the violence of the next page.

I’m not naïve enough to think that Mondo is the model for the future of the medium – not every mainstream superhero comic will look this good, and I don’t expect Chris Ware to begin publishing monthly issues anytime soon. And I don’t know how other readers reacted to it – be they dedicated genre fans, “literary” readers, or those who seek out and enjoy comics of all stripes. But Mondo #1 has the potential to change a reader’s mind, no matter how it’s set, and encourage experimentation in taste. And if risk and experimentation become the norm, for readers and creators alike, then the comics community will be a lot healthier in the years to come.

Solid Reads

Peter Panzerfaust #1

Continuing a month of solid debuts for Image Comics is Peter Panzerfaust #1, by writer Kurtis Wiebe and artist Tyler Jenkins. The two previous collaborated on Snow Angel, which recently appearedin short story format in a few issues of Dark Horse Presents, and which I rather enjoyed (though I admit I haven’t read the graphic novel.) Wiebe also wrote The Intrepids, which I felt didn’t quite live up to its clever premise. That’s certainly not the case with Panzerfaust – a re-telling of “Peter Pan” set in Calais during World War II could very easily become precious and enamored with it’s own conceit, but Wiebe and Jenkins manage to keep the issue breezy and exciting. Wiebe in particularly is coy with the magical element of the story, leaving it up to the reader to determine whether or not the narrator is simply embellishing an ordinary man’s actions. And Jenkins figure work is limber, just expressive enough to convey the unpredictability of the situation, but still grounded in the reality of the war. Like Snow Angel the whole issue feels minimal, though it’s packed with big moments and features steady narration. If subsequent issues can strike the same balance, then this could fast become my favorite monthly title.

And while we’re visiting Image’s February releases, we should bit farewell to Severed, which concludes with issue seven. When I first wrote about Severed back in August I noted how the first issue was a bit slow, and that co-writers Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft seemed more interested in creeping up on the reader than in shocking them outright. Having come to the final issue, though, there is no more creeping, no more teasing, just outright horror. Jack’s confrontation with “Fisher” in the basement of the derelict house is suitably gory, and artist Attila Futaki uses light and shadow to great effect, emphasizing Fisher’s monstrousness and Jack’s desperation. I do think the writers let Jack get away with a few too many “badass” moments, considering how young and naïve they’d made him out to be in previous issues, but it’s a minor complaint. And the final scene is chilling, suggesting (similarly to how Snyder ended his celebrated Detective Comics run) that awful things don’t go away, even when the good guy thinks he’s won.

Captain Atom #6

Regular readers of this column will recall that I’ve had a troubled relationship with Captain Atom, ever since the title launched in September with the rest of DC’s New 52. Freddie Williams II’s art has been gorgeous throughout, and I’ve sung colorist Jose Villarubia’s praises several times, as I think the otherworldly, luminous blue of Captain Atom’s body juxtaposed with the comparatively grim surroundings is a large part of the book’s appeal. But J.T. Krul’s scripts have been uneven, and mostly somewhat clunky, until this month’s issue six. Krul uses the hero’s infinite power to explore his capacity for empathy, as he taps into the mind of the mutated lab rat that’s taking over an entire city. And rather than flinch from that feeling, or have the hero justify his actions, Krul instead lets Captain Atom feel remorse and regret for what he has to do, and learns a lesson about being alone in the world. It’s a resigned, unexpectedly melancholy ending for a story arc that I’ve nearly dropped three or four times. As long as Krul continues to plumb the character’s emotional core, developing an irregular concept of heroism, I’ll be reading.

I haven’t written much about Animal Man since the relaunch, but it’s been a solid, compelling read from the first issue onward. Writer Jeff Lemire treats every member of the Baker family with equal dignity and concern, and uses them as mechanisms in the plot in such a way that Animal Man himself often feels like a bit player in his own book. It’s a refreshing take on the superhero dynamic, and one of a handful of New 52 titles that have lived up to the promise of a strong first issue. With issue six Lemire takes a break from the main story to follow-up on a bit of backstory from the first issue, namely Buddy’s short-lived film career. The issue is essentially the one movie he made, a gritty superhero drama called Tights in which Buddy plays Chas Grant, a washed up hero formerly known as The Red Thunder. Artist John Paul Leon fills in for series regular Travel Foreman, and the contrast between Leon’s thick, heavy line and Foreman’s lighter, sketchier approach heightens the meta-reality of the “movie”, as do the occasional on-panel graphics that tell us these scenes are taking place on someone’s screen (in the final three pages, penciled by Foreman, it’s revealed that Buddy’s son Cliff was watching it on his iPhone, which runs out of battery before the movie is over.) On one level it’s a fun story, but on a deeper level it’s the story of the divorced, out-of-touch Chas who clings to his superhero identity, a neurosis which defines Buddy by comparison, and lets us to better appreciate his devotion to his own family and reticence to be a superhero full-time.

Demo collaborators Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan join forces again with this month’s Conan the Barbarian #1 from Dark Horse Comics. Wood, who is currently wrapping up his long-running Viking series Northlanders with Vertigo, would seem a natural fit for the character, but would seem a bit of a wild card. Her expressive cartooning is perfectly suited to contained, personal dramas, but wouldn’t be my first thought for a barbarian adventure tale. However, it’s that atypical take on Conan that makes this issue so successful – this is a younger version of the character, befitting the leaner, kinetic approach Cloonan brings to the visuals. Wood is in fine form, too, writing a brash, headstrong Conan and making effective use of a dream sequence. While not a mind-blowing, or shocking issue, Conan the Barbarian #1 is nevertheless a strong, new-reader friendly portal to an iconic character.

Adventure Time #1

I picked up Adventure Time #1 because I love the Cartoon Network show, and because it’s written by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame and drawn by Boston-area artists Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb. And while it doesn’t quite avoid the typical pitfalls of comic adaptations of animated programs – the dialogue doesn’t quite match the rhythm of the voice acting, and the rapidity of the jokes doesn’t always translate to the page – it’s a fun read nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed the first page, which uses a nine panel grid for a clever joke about the show’s opening credits that establishes the tone, setting, and characters of the story in elegant gesture. Paroline and Lamb’s art hews close to the look of the show, but it still feels expressive and free, and the backgrounds are packed with visual gags. This probably won’t be a monthly read for me, but with a slate of heavy-hitting indie creators doing backup stories it’ll definitely be a title to revisit whenever I need a jolt of sugary fun.

One-Shots

Action Comics #6 is a classic Grant Morrison mind-bender, complete with time travel and goofy sci-fi death trap, that’s very unlike the relatively straightforward stories he’s been telling so far with this title.

Writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray bring the first major arc of All-Star Western to a close with issue six, as series artist Moritat returns to top form after a few issues that felt a bit lacking.

Batman escapes from the Court of Owls’ maze in Batman #6, as we knew he would, but this is far from a typical “good guy defeats bad guy” issue – in fact, Batman’s escape looks more like a retreat, and sets up this summer’s big Bat-crossover event.

I wasn’t a die-hard fan of “Batman Beyond” when it aired in the late 90s, but I picked up Batman Beyond Unlimited #1 because it features excellent art from Norm Breyfogle, one of only a few iconic Bat-artists of the 90s, and I like to see industry vets getting work from major publishers.

Although I’m enjoying the story of Damian’s dalliance with his dark side in Batman and Robin #6, it’s starting to feel a bit labored – hopefully writer Peter J. Tomasi will bring it to an end next month, and subsequent arcs won’t be quite so drawn out.

Given the thankless task of following the brilliant J.H. Williams III on art duties, Amy Reeder more than proves her mettle with Batwoman #6, with a clean, kinetic line and layouts that are possibly more readable (if a bit less elegant) than her predecessor’s.

Writer Mike Costa seems to be hitting his stride with Blackhawks #6, which makes it’s quick cancellation (with April’s issue eight) even more of a bummer.

The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #2 is even weirder and more satisfying than the first issue, parodying old EC anthology horror titles with three gruesome, ironic tales, one of which features a man who vomits a bunch of hair.

Judd Winick’s script gets a little melodramatic towards the end of Catwoman #6, but regardless I like how the conclusion of this arc echoes the infamous first issue, and brings some resolution to story threads that could’ve just as easily been dropped.

Daredevil #9 sends the blind hero underground on an Orphean journey to stop a grave-robbing ring run by the Mole Man, and ends with a disturbing sequence that’s also quite poignant.

After several months away I decided to check in on Dark Horse Presents with issue eight, in larger part for the preview of Brian Wood’s new series, The Massive, which is compelling but mostly a tease. The rest of the issue is uneven, a few really good stories and several that were terrible, particularly “The Once and Future Tarzan” by Alan Gordon and Thomas Yeates.

DC Universe Presents #6 is a mess from beginning to end – a new story arc featuring a re-imagined Challengers of the Unknown drawn by Jerry Ordway should be entertaining at the least, but the script, by Ordway and DC co-publisher Dan DiDio is over complicated and hacky.

DeadpoolMAX II #5 had none of the wit or interesting storytelling of the past year and half worth of this series (and its predecessor) – with the title’s final issue coming next month it feels like writer David Lapham is rushing to get all the pieces in place so the finale isn’t a cop out.

Following last month’s tour of individual character moments, Demon Knights #6 coalesces all of those stories as the broken heroes prepare for a final stand against the invasion force and make a few last ditch plans that give this title some needed momentum.

I liked the first issue of Fatale but it felt a bit rote, as if something was missing – issue two clears all of that up, as writer Ed Brubaker introduces the occult/horror elements to the story and reveals a bit more of how this fictional world works.

Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato play with time and perspective in The Flash #6, and introduce iconic Flash villain Captain Cold to the new DCU – but it’s to their credit that the budding love triangle between Barry, Patty, and Iris is the most exciting aspect of the issue.

I almost left Green Lantern #6 on the shelf, and clearly should have – I’m a fan of artist Mike Choi but his work here is far from his best, and Geoff Johns’s script seems to be recycling concepts from the first issue of the relaunch. Dropped.

Moving on from the crossover-origin event of the past two months, both Incorruptible #27 and Irredeemable #34 move forward into grim territory, with Lt. Armadale making a drastic decision about his future in Incorruptible, and a few established characters die in Irredeemable.

There are some nice moments in Justice League #6, but nothing happened in this entire story arc that couldn’t have been handled in a single issue, with far more impact and consequence.

Javier Pullido is a welcome addition to The Shade, taking over art duties with issue five and bringing a thin, elegant line that suits the vampire-pirate action and the Barcelona backdrop of this arc.

With Spaceman #4 writer Brian Azzarello offers the first hints that whatever happened to Orson on Mars might be his fault, which makes his concern for and rescue of Tara more complicated, but also more touching.

The games and puzzle theme of the mystery in Steed and Mrs. Peel #2 is a Morrison touchstone, but the story is dull and nowhere near the writer’s better work so I won’t be returning next month.

Swamp Thing #6 gets quite horrific after last month’s breather, as Abby is taken over by the Rot and turned into a horrible fleshy cocoon thing, rendered exquisitely by fill-in artist Marco Rudy.

Paul Cornell exits Stormwatch with issue six, establishing a new status quo for upcoming writers (Paul Jenkins for two issues, then Peter Milligan) to play with, but having finished the first story arc I think this title will be a month-to-month decision for me.

Another member of the team meets his inevitable, heroic death in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #4, and indie comics legend Sam Kieth pencils a chilling flashback sequence that explains the stakes of the war between humans and Subterraneans.

Tony Akins’s pencils in Wonder Woman #6 obscure a crucial plot point and make the ending a bit difficult to decipher, but the issue overall is quite satisfying as Wonder Woman manipulates Hades and Poseidon, and makes a bold stand against Hera.

Looking Ahead to March

The Manhattan Projects #1 from Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra, Brian K. Vaughan joins Fiona Staples on Saga, and Paul Cornell launches his X-Files meets West Wing Vertigo title, Saucer Country.

Spotlight

The Shade #4

Very few comic book writers have fallen as far out of critical and popular esteem as James Robinson; certainly no others who have experienced a similar fall are still producing major work. The closest is probably Jeph Loeb, but even his biggest critical hits were nothing compared to Robinson’s run in the mid to late 90s. The Golden Age, Leave It to Chance, Starman, the Legends of the Dark Knight story “Blades” – each of these featured rich, complex stories that made Robinson a critical darling. With his exceptional character sense and predilection for the under-appreciated corners of comic book history, Robinson’s place in history was already secure when he left comics for Hollywood in the early 2000s.

Then he wrote the screenplay for the awful League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, wrote and directed the forgettable Comic Book Villains, and stayed away from comics until 2006, when he returned to DC to write an 8-part story crossover story in Batman and Detective Comics. The Robinson of old was largely missing in that story, and seemed to have disappeared entirely by 2009’s Justice League: Cry for Justice mini-series. Critics and fans alike assailed the title, and it seemed that his celebrated earlier work would from now on be slightly tainted, a little asterisk next to each title to signify that the writer had gone to pot shortly afterward.

That said, The Shade #4 is a good indication that Robinson is becoming comfortable with his voice again, and is still capable of telling a nuanced story with recognizable, distinct character work. Reuniting the writer with arguably the most popular character to emerge from his Starman series, The Shade is a 12-issue maxiseries that follows the reformed villain/not-quite hero as he investigates an attempt on his life. That story is told in three-issue arcs, broken up by single-issue “Times Past” stories, which tell tales of the Shade’s adventures in different eras, with guest artists on hand to better evoke the “out of time” feel of the narrative. The first of these, issue four, features pencils by Darwyn Cooke and inks by his regular collaborator J. Bone, an art team ideally suited for a story set during World War II.

Issue 4 begins with the Shade at his desk, quill in hand, writing his memoirs, and through the narration we flash back to 1944, and the story of the character’s first heroic act. While planning a diamond heist, he learns about a Nazi plot to assassinate an American industrialist, Darnell Caldecott, and decides to provide his own variety of protection. Enlisting the aid of two Golden Age heroes, the motorcycle-riding cowboy Vigilante and the mysterious Madame Fatale, whose secret is revealed in the third act. It’s a fairly straightforward, tightly constructed story, but it reads more like a broad serial adventure, due largely to Cooke and Bone’s art.

Darwyn Cooke’s art is so closely associated with the post-World War II era of America – thanks to indelible work like The New Frontier and his adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker novels – that it’d be tempting to say he was typecast if he wasn’t so clearly content to recreate (or reinterpret, depending on your perspective) that world. His clean, bold line and minimalist design work lends itself to the hard angles of art deco settings and lantern-jawed heroes. And though none of the characters in The Shade #4 fit that hard-boiled Cooke archetype, he conveys the title character’s unsettling urbanity, and Madame Fatale’s restraint, suggesting the character’s secret pages before it even plays into the story. J. Bone’s inks keep Cooke’s pencils a bit more elastic, which suits the fantastic element of the Shade’s shadow powers, particularly in a scene when he confronts the saboteur. And with all of that energetic storytelling fit into the rigid wide-panel grid Cooke is so fond of, the book feels big and busy; it’s cinematic, but the cinema of a bygone era.

Robinson’s best work captures that same feeling of dislocation. He thrives writing misfit characters that populate odd corners of the shared universe – at a very basic level Starman is about the rehabilitation of lost, unloved characters flung across DC’s publishing history. And though he tried to populate books like Superman and Justice League of America with similarly underused characters, it didn’t quite work because those are spotlight titles. Set apart from well-known characters and big storylines, in his own fictive space, Robinson is capable of great depth and clarity. The Shade seems to be providing him that space for now; whether he stays there (or DC lets him) will likely determine the tenor of the writer’s second act.

Solid Reads

The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #1

The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #1 returns writer David Hine and artist Shaky Kane to the psychedelic, self-referential world of the first Bulletproof Coffin series. But where that miniseries followed a single storyline, Disinterred is almost like an anthology title, with each issue telling the story of a different character, some of whom appeared briefly in the original series. Issue one introduces a detective named Johnny P. Sartre who day-dreams (hallucinates?) about becoming the commie-hating crime fighter The Shield of Justice. The stress of investigating a series of brutal, elaborately orchestrated murders leads him to crack up even further, and before long he moves to finally erase the line between fantasy and reality, with horrific consequences. That movement between levels of reality defined the original Bulletproof Coffin, but the dangers of identifying too closely with violent superhero archetypes are made more explicit here. Hine is as sarcastic as ever, but amid the absurdity he still manages to tell an interesting mystery story (even if the mystery is never actually solved). And Kane’s flat, brittle art is perfectly suited to both render the awful details of this world, and call attention to the comic page as object, which seems to be what these books are largely about. The Bulletproof Coffin was one of my favorite titles of 2010; I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re talking about the six issues of Disinterred again come December.

Fatale #1 also features a series of grisly murders, a detective pushed to the breaking point, and a supernatural element, but its tone is about as different from the dark absurdity of Bulletproof Coffin as possible. Writer Ed Brubaker is firmly in hardboiled mode in this title, from the 1940s setting to the beautiful woman with a secret past who seduces a married reporter. That would be a satisfying narrative mode on it’s own, but Brubaker introduces an element of horror into the plot, with a strange cult that has some kind of connection to World War II, and images of creatures introduced in a hallucinatory flashback that suggest there’s something more at stake than the typical heist and doomed romance. Artist Sean Phillips, Brubaker’s longtime collaborator, acquits himself equally well with both noir and horror aspects of the story – the hazy, shadow-heavy panels have a kind of weary, worn-in feel, which makes the sudden introduction of headless corpses at the scene of a ritual murder appropriately disturbing. This issue is dense with story, but so much of it serves as introduction that it feels as if very little actually happened – that’s likely just a storytelling kink that’ll be worked out in subsequent issues. Still, this is a promising start from two creators trying something new in a genre they’ve more or less mastered.

Batman #5

My first immediate re-read experience of 2012 comes courtesy of Batman #5, by writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo. Much has been made of the issue’s experimental format – halfway through, the layouts rotate horizontally, so that you have to turn the book around to read it, then rotate again so that it’s upside down, and so on until the final pages when it’s righted once more – and while I agree that the interactivity highlights Batman’s own confusion as he tries and fails to negotiate the Court of Owls’s maze, it’s just one aspect of an overall incredible issue. For the first time in his run Snyder digs into Bruce’s mind, using the Court’s psychological torture (and a helping of drugged water) to reveal both how durable his mind is, and how dangerous it can be once it’s finally broken. Over the past fifteen years it’s rare that we’ve seen Batman presented as anything but confident and ultra-capable, ready for any contingency, always playing the long game with his villains, so it’s particularly thrilling to watch Snyder leave the character vulnerable and alone. Doubly so because we know full well that the third act of the story, Batman’s recovery and revenge, will be all the more exciting for it.

Elsewhere in the Bat-world, Catwoman #5 continues that title’s run of superbly plotted stories. Writer Judd Winick fits four major sequences into these 20 pages without sacrificing nuance. In another writer’s hands this issue could’ve easily been just the big fight sequence with Reach, or the police chase, but Winick is able to move the plot through each turn, mixing humor with action and bringing a subplot that’s been developing over the past few issues to a head. There’s certainly still an argument to be made that artist Guillem March takes the cheesecake to an extreme – witness this issue’s scene of Selina spending some of the money she recovered from Reach on top-dollar spa treatment – but as the series gains depth those moments are increasingly rare, and more often at least somewhat germane to the story and rooted in character. It seems that Winick and March will stay on the title for the foreseeable future, which bodes well not just for the stability of the story, but also the increasing sophistication of the storytelling.

When I learned that Daredevil #8 was the second part of a story that began in Amazing Spider-Man #677 I planned on skipping the first part and just reading Daredevil – I trust that I’m a sophisticated enough reader that I could put the rest of the story together through context, and if not there are numerous online resources that could catch me up. But then I noticed that ASM #677 was written by Daredevil writer Mark Waid and drawn by Emma Rios, so I grabbed them both. And while the story of Daredevil and Spider-Man teaming up with the Black Cat (Marvel’s Catwoman analogue) is fun and light in keeping with Waid’s style, Emma Rios’s art is the real draw. Her line work is heavy and sketchy, and seems to draw quite a bit of influence from Paul Pope. But that influence isn’t derivative, and Rios seems more flexible with action, which suits a story that features three highly acrobatic characters. Fill-in artist Kano delivers effective Paolo Rivera-styled art on Daredevil, but it’s nowhere near as energetic as Rios or as impeccably designed as Rivera. And it’s worth noting that Rios’s Black Cat is lithe and dangerous, whereas Kano’s is more typically exaggerated. Waid uses the team-up of heroes who are not quite friends to showcase his comic dialogue, and it’s all over fairly quickly. I’m looking forward to Rivera’s return to Daredevil next month, and I’m hoping Emma Rios moves from the Spider-books to another title sometime soon.

Wonder Woman #5

Back in November in my Spotlight review of Wonder Woman I stated that the redesigned Greek mythological figures were perhaps my favorite aspect of the title. Wonder Woman #5 features the most radical depictions yet, offering a Hades who looks like an eleven year-old boy with melting candles on his head, and wax dripping down over his eyes. Poseidon is a mash-up of every kind of sea-life you can think of: whale, octopus, and catfish, plus a starfish for a crown, a shark’s dorsal fin, and a nautilus shell emerging from his side. Poseidon’s design suggests just how willing Azzarello and Chiang (who is replaced by Tony Akins for January and February’s issues) are to break with Wonder Woman’s past, and play with characters that don’t resemble superhero or supervillain archetypes. Amid the new character introductions and splash pages of gods confronting mortals, Wonder Woman gets to spend some down time talking to Zola, and realizes that the young woman carrying Zeus’s child is her aunt-to-be. It’s a nice moment that suggests Diana’s kindness and generosity of spirit, and far from typical from Azzarello, who is best known for his grim crime stories and characters that refuse to feel anything beyond than anger, jealousy, and greed. His work on Wonder Woman reveals the writer’s more playful side, as did his previous collaboration with Chiang, the excellent Dr. Thirteen: Architecture and Morality. There will always be time for terse private detectives and criminal types who solve problems with fists; for now, it’s nice to read about a hero who leads with her heart instead.

One-Shots

The narrative shift from issue four to issue five of Action Comics is pretty sharp – the previous issues were rather straightforward, but with issue five Morrison becomes more elliptical, telling a more complex story and introducing a few characters to the new DC universe.

All-Star Western #5 links 19th century Gotham City to the mythology established in Grant Morrison’s time-traveling Batman series from 2010, The Return of Bruce Wayne, meshing Jonah Hex with the larger universe in an elegant way.

With issue five writer Jeff Lemire brings the first arc of Animal Man to a close at exactly the right time, just before we’re dulled to the horror and bored by the exposition.

By comparison, Batman and Robin #5 is heavy with exposition, as Bruce flashes back to his first meeting with Morgan Ducard – it’s a bit much, but a brilliantly paced action sequence featuring Damian towards the end of the issue makes up for it.

The new status quo set up at the end of Batwoman #5 is compelling and ensures that I’ll stick around for next month at least, but the conclusion of the Weeping Woman story felt rushed and dull.

As expected, new series artists CAFU and Bit bring some much needed drama to Blackhawks #5, which takes place almost entirely aboard a satellite that’s about to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Captain Atom #5 is perhaps the most beautiful issue of an already unbelievably beautiful title, and the story moves forward just enough that I think I’m on board for next month, but I’m always teetering on the edge of dropping it.

In DeadpoolMAX #4 writer David Lapham takes Agent X, a strange alternate version of Deadpool from when Marvel was trying to avoid paying royalties to creator Rob Liefeld, and turns him into an assassin whose sad life story mirrors Deadpool’s own, making his death a little more poignant than expected.

It’s a testament to the character work writer Paul Cornell is doing in Demon Knights that the big reveal of the team traitor in issue five stung as much as it did.

The Flash #5 delivers a perfect conclusion to the Mob Rule story that only falters in the end – but it’s a big misstep, as co-writers Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato pull a character’s motivation seemingly out of nowhere as an excuse to set up a recurring villain for the Flash.

Geoff Johns wraps up the first story arc in Green Lantern #5 with some strong moments for Sinestro and a happy ending for Hal Jordan, not to mention an intriguing teaser that means I’ll probably be sticking around on this book a bit longer than I’d suspected.

But I think I’m done with I, Vampire as of issue five – the Batman guest appearance read a bit flat, and I just don’t particularly care about what happens to these characters.

Incorruptible and Irredeemable conclude their big origin-telling crossover with issues 26 and 33, respectively – Incorruptible ended on a deeply moving note, perhaps the most overall successful issue of the series yet, while Irredeemable twists the knife one final time with a dark revelation about the Plutonian’s adopted parents.

Too many inkers hurt Justice League #5, which looked uneven and rushed – story-wise, it’s still crawling along, and if I could get the part of my brain that processes nerd OCD thinking to let go of my allegiance to Justice League comics, I would drop it.

Artist Stuart Immonen joins Warren Ellis for the final issue of his celebrated run on Secret Avengers with issue 21, which brings the entire team together for an impossible mission that ends abruptly and proves that Ellis has no room for sentimentalizing superheroes in his black heart. I also read Secret Avengers 21.1, which introduces the upcoming arc by writer Rick Remender, and though it was fun enough I think I’ll pick up the next arc in trade paperback form.

All of the cards are finally on the table with Severed #6, as Jack finally realizes the old man killed Sam, and the reveal that comes when Jack finds his father’s house is possibly the most upsetting plot point in a mini-series that has featured it’s share of awful things.

Steed and Mrs. Peel #1 reprints the first issue of Grant Morrison’s 1990 mini-series for Eclipse Comics featuring characters from the BBC television show “The Avengers” – I’m fond of “The Avengers” and obviously a Morrison fan, but this was only OK and therefore a bit of a let-down. I’ll be back next month, but I’m not necessarily committed to the title.

Paul Cornell is apparently fond of revealing team traitors in fifth issues, as Stormwatch #5 features a lot of chaos wrought by Harry Tanner who blows up the satellite headquarters after learning he won’t be selected as the new team leader.

Yanick Paquette is back on Swamp Thing with issue five, and his gift for precise, horrifying detail is useful in this issue, which features several reanimated animal corpses attacking Alec and Abby, and the first instance of Alec tapping into the power of the Green.

Guest art from Walt Simonson makes T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3 all the more exciting, but even without the legendary creator’s presence this would be a compelling issue – writer Nick Spencer has picked up the pace from the previous series, delivering more action and pushing the plot along while still exploring the dark corners of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents history.

Author: Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Jim Rugg

2012, Titan

Filed Under: Graphic Novels, Historical

It’s not difficult to understand why the Red Army Faction, a leftist revolutionary sect that was founded in Germany in 1970 and existed in various forms for nearly 30 years, has inspired so many books, films, plays, songs, paintings, and other works of art. Young, politically minded people banding together under charismatic leadership, the journalist who puts her ideals into practice and co-founds the group, the campaign of violence, prison break, subsequent arrest and final fate of the leaders – the story is an a la carte menu for any kind of statement you’d want to make. And largely because of that appeal, it’s also easy to romanticize the group, and gloss over the consequences of the violent acts attributed to the them, which include 34 deaths. Even Uli Edel’s 2008 film The Baader-Meinhoff Complex, which effectively charts the group’s violent pathology, can’t resist a bit of mythologizing.

Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Jim Rugg’s graphic novel One Model Nation, originally published by Image Comics in 2009 and now republished by Titan Books, attempts a corrective to that dynamic, presenting the RAF as a frustration in the lives of four musicians who are trying to progress to the next stage of their career. But none of the criticism levied against the RAF, and Andreas Baader in particular, by the main characters amounts to anything more than insults like “assholes” and “turd.” They seem more concerned that their young fans’ sympathy with the gang has ruined some of their gigs and attracted unwanted police attention than with the RAF’s ideology, or the bombings and killings they commit. As an indictment of violent political action Taylor-Taylor’s story is toothless; it doesn’t fare much better as an account of a mythical band’s glory days.

One Model Nation begins with a framing sequence set in the present, in which an American documentarian meets with Olaf, a former member of the German art rock band Werkstatt, the subject of his next film. He’s unable to help, but the director presses ahead, asking “what really happened to the band called One Model Nation?” You’d be forgiven for assuming that Olaf would play some pivotal role in the flashback that makes up the rest of the story, but neither Olaf nor Werkstatt are mentioned again until the final pages, when we return to the framing sequence for a non sequitur ending. This kind of elided storytelling continues throughout the book, such that it feels like Taylor-Taylor is deliberating leaving details out, as if to preempt accusations that he’s holding his reader’s hands. But there’s a difference between expecting readers to think and engage with the text, and preventing them from doing so by excising important story elements.

The flashback takes us to Berlin in 1977, when One Model Nation is an apparently internationally popular krautrock band in the Kraftwerk vein, who are tormented by both the RAF and the police. During a meeting with a local promoter, the band is faced with two options: appeal to the West German government to get the police off their case, or play at an illegal festival in Frankfurt. They can’t come to a decision, but soon it doesn’t matter because one of their numbers, Sebastian, leaves the group after their specially-equipped studio is destroyed during a police raid. The remaining members tinker with electronics and meet David Bowie while Sebastian spends time in the countryside with his elderly father, a former Nazi officer, who convinces him to return to the group and face his frustration with the deterioration of society. The group eventually decides to play the festival, but an encounter with Badder, Ulrike Meinhoff, and their former roadie who’s become a full-fledged RAF member, lands them all in prison.

As a central tension, deciding whether to keep it real or sell out isn’t particularly compelling, especially when it’s already been established that One Model Nation is famous in Germany, England, the United States, and elsewhere. Taylor-Taylor inexplicably begins the story after the more interesting conflicts that arise in stories about mythical bands/artists have already resolved, and ends before a compelling mystery or ambiguity about the characters is established. The sound of the band’s music is never addressed, either – fans of bands like Kraftwerk and Can probably have an idea, but anyone uninitiated in krautrock would be largely in the dark (Note: Taylor-Taylor – the frontman of the Dandy Warhols – is releasing music under the name “One Model Nation” to accompany the Titan reissue, which is a fun marketing idea, but it doesn’t really solve the problems raised by the text. The songs I’ve listened to are ok.) The answer to “what really happened to the band One Model Nation” turns out to be “nothing, really,” and as the plot returned to the framing sequence I wasn’t sure why the question had been asked in the first place.

It’s often difficult to distinguish the members of One Model Nation from one another, with the exception of Sebastian, as their surface personality quirks (Ralf is sheepish, Wolfgang is outgoing) come and go as the scene dictates, and their dialogue is mostly interchangeable. Artist Jim Rugg makes an effort to differentiate them through facial features, but still, they’re all tall, thin, and pale with long dark hair (except Wolfgang) – it wasn’t until 2/3rds of my way through the book that I felt comfortable pinning names, much less motivations and personalities, to the characters.

Taylor-Taylor’s depiction of Ulrike Meinhoff as Sebastian’s vapid, easily manipulated ex-girlfriend is particularly deplorable. When we first encounter Meinhoff she is faking the sounds of sex from inside her apartment to prevent Sebastian from knocking on her door – in the afterward we learn that this actually happened to Taylor-Taylor, but does such behavior square with the historical Meinhoff? Later they meet in a café, and in response to Sebastian’s rambling about the nature of mankind, Meinhoff can only say “I really love you” and “I’m bummed we never could get it together.” Couple that with Taylor-Taylor’s description of Meinhoff in the Titan edition’s backmatter as a “left-wing political journalist with the facial structure of a bull terrier” and “German radical left-winger she-beast” and it’s clear that One Model Nation’s gender politics are retrograde (and I haven’t even mentioned the sexy punk rocker who only shows up in the final act to dispense some exposition and act as a romantic interest for Wolfgang).

Plot and characterization problems aside, Jim Rugg’s art is gorgeous, particularly his detailed views of the Berlin cityscape. There’s a sense of location, both geographically and temporally, in every panel – little touches with clothes, cars, hairstyles, and other signifiers of the late 70s reveal the care and precision in Rugg’s disarmingly simple linework. He sticks to a nine-panel grid for most of the story, which drags the pace down a bit, particularly in dialogue heavy scenes that might play better in larger panels, but does set up some nice surprise moments when the grid is broken, particularly a stunning explosion and the few concert sequences that convey the excitement and energy of a One Model Nation show. Colorist Jon Fell also deserves praise for the palette of grays, browns, and whites that give the book a quiet, subdued feel, and the moments of shocking color that accompany major plot points.

There’s an interesting story in the intersection of competing youth-oriented cultures, but One Model Nation is a few drafts away from really telling it. It’s revealing that Taylor-Taylor originally conceived of the story as a screenplay, and only adapted it into a comic after it failed to gain momentum with producers and directors – comic scripts and screenplays suit different purposes, and one can’t and shouldn’t just replace the other. That Taylor-Taylor’s friend, indie comic stalwart Mike Allred, guided that transition is encouraging, but I can’t sense his expertise in the final product. One Model Nation is a beginning writer’s good effort, but is ultimately disappointing.

[A review was requested and a review copy provided.]

Spotlight

Secret Avengers #20

In his 2011 mini-series The Red Wing, one of my favorite comics of last year, Jonathan Hickman uses time travel as more than just a plot device meant to complicate the narrative and give readers a fun puzzle to solve by the final issue. That isn’t to say that the plot isn’t so tangled that it can’t be untied, but simply that Hickman describes his concept of time travel in more poetic terms (aided, it’s worth nothing, by diagrams drawn into the scene by series artist Nick Pittara) and seems less interested in the mechanics of time travel than in its effects on the story’s emotional arc. By playing with our expectations of what time travel means Hickman brings some of the danger and volatility to that sci-fi trope. Warren Ellis does the same thing in Secret Avengers #20, but from the opposite direction – rather than eschewing the paradoxes and details of time travel, Ellis luxuriates in them, creating an elaborate puzzlebox of a story that doubles as a character study of Black Widow.

The issue begins with a large panel of Captain America being shot in the chest – a shocking image, but not entirely surprising given Ellis’s very public (and likely exaggerated) dislike of superheroes – and the next few pages continue along the same lines. All of the Secret Avengers except for Black Widow are dead or dying, having received some bad intel and run a mission at the wrong moment. As he dies, War Machine gives Black Widow an emergency “escape hatch” device, which she uses to get help. As it happens, the “escape hatch” sends her back in time five years to an Italian villa, giving her enough time to figure out how to save her teammates.

Her plan is ingenious, but it’s how Ellis gradually introduces and shapes each gear in the works that makes the story such a delightful read. The device bounces her around in time as she gathers vital information about how time travel works (she can’t undo something that’s already been done, and she can’t be in the same place as her past self) then meets with an illegal superweapons manufacturer and a mad scientist, thus setting the plan in motion. These encounters are drenched in Ellis’s trademark wit, particularly Black Widow’s back and forth with eccentric scientist Count Khronus, but still convey the tedium and frustration of having to wait for time to catch up with your ideas. To busy herself Natasha befriends the Count and his assistant/husband Kongo, and visits deceased colleagues.

As the time-shifting continues these scenes get shorter and punchier, and gradually we begin to see how every seemingly disparate encounter clicks together. By the time Natasha returns to the present all that’s left to do, for both hero and reader, is to stand back and enjoy the inevitable result. And the final bits of dialogue, as the revived Avengers attribute their survival to luck and coincidence, reveals that Widow’s machinations parallel Ellis’s own storytelling goals – the most skilled practitioners of their craft can make impossible complicated acts seem like happenstance.

All along this run Ellis has been matched with high-caliber artists, and Alex Maleev is no exception. He’s equally adept at both aspects of the story, from a stunning two-page spread of the opening battle scene that suggests the scale of just how poorly the mission has gone to the slight smirk Natasha wears when consulting with Khronus and her nonchalant posture in the issue’s final panel. The subtlety of those expressions makes Ellis’s wit feel germane to the story, more than just a writer’s attempt to seem clever.

And though colorist Nick Filardi is no slouch, I think Maleev’s pencils work even better in a bizarre two-page sequence that suddenly turns the action into a Steve Canyon-esque black and white newspaper strip. The sketchy, spare line work suits that format really well, no matter that I can’t see any good reason why it’s necessary for that sequence.

Ellis’s Secret Avengers run concludes in January, and when all is said and done it should make for a perfect trade paperback collection of tightly constructed stories. What’s ironic, then, is that these issues are ideally suited for the burgeoning digital market. As the big publishers push further into digital comics and the format gets new legs, I think we’ll see readers abandoning the trade collections that dominated publishing and sales models in the 2000s in favor of the kind of single-issue, “one and done” stories of the Silver and Bronze ages. New digital readers, who won’t be trained in the weekly or monthly buying habits of the fan who came up pre-tablet, might be less inclined to wait 30 days for the next installment of story that stretches out over six or seven issues. Instead, they might prefer issues like Secret Avengers #20, which can be read without any prior knowledge of the characters or universe, and which implies no lingering connections to subsequent stories. This wouldn’t be the first time Warren Ellis laid the groundwork for a trend the rest of the industry caught up with in three or four years.

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Solid Reads

Deadpool MAX-Mas Special #1

Deadpool MAX-Mas #1 rolls two things I love, David Lapham and Kyle Baker’s work on Deadpool and special Christmas-themed comics, into one extra-sized package. A twist on It’s A WonderfulLife, this issue has Hydra Bob lamenting that he wished he’d never been born (understandable, considering he’s been framed by the CIA as the worst terrorist in history.) Deadpool plays the “Clarence” role, but instead of going on an invisible journey through an alternate timeline, he simply fakes Bob’s death and lets his friend see what would actually happen if he’d died. The tour is split into three parts, each drawn by a different artist – Baker takes the second story, regular fill-in artist Shawn Crystal, who also drew Deadpool MAX II #3 this month, takes the third. But best of all is the first story, illustrated by Lapham himself. Since the conclusion of Young Liars we’ve had a lot of writing from David Lapham, but precious little art (a guest issue of DMZ, I think, is the only thing I recall) so it’s nice to see that clean, bold linework again. And while Lapham’s art isn’t as madcap or cartoony as Baker’s, he still manages the light yet deeply disturbing tone through precise detailing. Crystal’s art doesn’t quite hit those right notes of absurdity, but he’s no slouch, and you could ask for far less from a regular fill-in artist. Deadpool MAX II #3 takes a detour from the story of Bob and Wade’s run from the law and brings back a few characters from last year’s bachelor party issue. It’s fun, but this series always suffers when Lapham’s sense of humor gets the better of the plot. And having seen the highs this book is capable of (issue three, in particular) it’s easy to gloss over the lesser chapters.

Daredevil #7

While not exactly a “holiday special” Daredevil #7 does take place during a winter storm and includes a flashback to a Christmas party. The story finds Matt Murdoch chaperoning school trip for a dozen blind children, and having to rely on his radar senses when a bus crash strands the group in the woods during the aforementioned storm. In another writer’s hands this could easily come off as a cheesy, sentimental story about the hero being rescued by children. But Mark Waid’s script keeps the tone just dark and uncertain enough that the expected ending feels like relief rather than cliché. Daredevil’s internal narrative suggests the precariousness of both the physical situation, and the hero’s state of mind as he struggles to keep the children safe while every plan he makes fails. And artist Paolo Rivera contributes to that sense of danger in his layouts. Tight, small panels cramped with close-ups of faces and trees move suddenly into large, panoramic views of the grey and white nothingness that surrounds the troop. Coupled with the persistent snow effect from colorist Javier Rodriguez, the art gives this book a palpable, ominous chill.

I remember reading about the Elseworlds 100-Page Spectacular back when it was only an 80-Page Giant, at least a decade ago, if not longer – DC published the collection of alternate timeline stories, then immediately pulped it over concerns that an image of a baby Superman getting zapped in a microwave (and crawling away unscathed, mind you) from the Kyle Baker story, “Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter” was inappropriate. The few copies that leaked out became collector’s items, and even though the Baker story was eventually published in a different collection it still retained that “forbidden tale” appeal. Now DC have reversed their position and quietly released the original issue, with an extra story of a Jewish Batman fighting the SS in Berlin by Paul Pope that’s predictably gorgeous and thoughtful. Pope’s story is far from the only highlight in this collection, however – Baker’s “Tom and Jerry”-inspired story of baby Superman and his babysitter is chaotic fun with a great punchline in the final panel, and Tom Peyer and Ariel Olivetti’s satire of the acclaimed mini-series Kingdom Come is full of sharp inside jokes for fans (or critics) of the original. Some of the other stories don’t quite hit, particularly an MTV-style documentary about Lex Luthor’s career as a rock producer, but for pure laughs nothing beats Mark Waid and Ty Templeton’s series of mock Silver Age covers, lightly parodying the “shocking twist” nature of many Elseworlds stories. I’m sure everything would’ve read better in the context of when it was written – when was the last time DC actually released an Elseworlds story – but it’s still worth checking out to see some peerless creators enjoying a rare bit of anarchic fun with classic characters.

Batman, Inc. - Leviathan Strikes! #1

My most anticipated December release was Batman, Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes! #1, the conclusion of the first volume of Grant Morrison’s Batman, Incorporated story that was beset by scheduling delays last year and put aside during the New 52 relaunch. Though the story’s momentum dissipated slightly over the four months since the last issue of Batman, Inc. was released I was still eager to return to Morrison’s dense, complicated Bat-world and read the payoff to the title’s central mystery. This extra-sized issue (that was kind of a theme this month) includes the story of Batgirl undercover in a prep school for girl assassins, drawn by Cameron Stewart, and Batman’s final confrontation with Doctor Daedalus, drawn by Chris Burnham. Both artists are in top form, but Burnham in particular shows off some effective layouts that translate a script dense with timeloops and dimension shifting into rational visuals. Throughout the finale Morrison ties together small bits of story from the previous eight issues, leading to a reveal of Leviathan’s identity that’s been effectively hidden in plain sight all along. As with the rest of Morrison’s Batman run, Leviathan Strikes! rewards subsequent readings, particularly after a refresher course of the previous issues of Batman, Inc. Unfortunately, we have to wait until May for the Morrison and Burnham’s next volume.

One fundamental rule of superhero comics is if there’s a single universe shared among two or more books, a crossover is inevitable, if for no other reason than to boost the sales of whichever book sells the least. It’s a testament to both Mark Waid’s storytelling instincts and Boom! Studios’s editorial stance, that Irredeemable and Incorruptible have gone this long (nearly three years for the former, two for the latter) without a major crossover (granted, Incorruptible began as a response to events in Irredeemable, and some characters have bled from one book into the other, but before this month’s “Redemption” arc, you never needed to read both titles to understand the basic story.) Waid uses the occasion to explore the origins of both evil Superman-analogue The Plutonian and his archenemy, the recently reformed ex-villain Max Damage. It turns out the characters share more than just mutual animosity, and Waid deftly embeds small, seemingly insignificant moments in Irredeemable that he then extrapolates into major plot points in Incorruptible. And because the issues alternate between the two characters Waid is able to maintain each book’s particular tone – dark, discomfiting irony in Irredeemable #32, and bittersweet sincerity in Incorruptible #25. Plus, in Incorruptible #25 we also get the secret origin of Charlie Hustle, which leads me to believe that either Waid knows other readers love the character as much as I do, or he’s reading this column and tailoring the story to suit my specific interests. Either way, I’m happy.

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7

I typically reserve the space to talk about books I like, and express any negative critiques succinctly in the “One-Shots” section. But this month I must write at length about a book that’s fallen from rather lofty heights. I wish I could say otherwise, but Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7 was nowhere near as funny or inventive as the first five issues. New issues of Thrizzle have become a once-a-year event, so anticipation is always high for fans of the early issues and Kupperman’s webstrip for Fantagraphics.com, Up All Night. Issue #6 was uneven, but I hoped it was just a temporary setback and that Kupperman would be back in top form the following year. But outside of a strip about McArf the Crime Dog, who is forever on the lookout for scum, and some good gags in the “Quincy, M.D.” story, Thrizzle #7 feels, and looks, rushed. In the early issues Kupperman’s jokes defied you to figure out what was funny about, say, a character named Uncle Grandpa, or the ongoing culture war between Sex Blimps and Sex Holes. The humor was obscure but never random, and the gags didn’t build to punchlines so much as develop into bizarre worlds that then crashed into the orbits of other worlds. But now the jokes seem to stay at one level, substituting randomness for absurdity and leaning on cultural references to do the heavy lifting. Hopefully another year will find Kupperman inspired and engaged with comics as he once was.

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One-Shots

Action Comics #4 features the first big fight of the series, between Superman and what might be the new Metallo, but a lot of the action is shunted to the back-up feature, which makes for an odd but exciting reading experience.

I thought for sure the ending of last month’s All-Star Western was a kind of in medias res fade to black thing, but this month we get to see the gruesome results of Hex’s stand-off and the beginning of a new mystery that finds the bounty hunter teamed once again with Jeremiah Arkham.

In Animal Man#4 Jeff Lemire delves deeper into the background and mythology of the Red, and artist Travel Foreman tops himself with a chase sequence towards the end of the issue that somehow combines everything disturbing and horrible into one final image.

Aquaman #4 is a showcase for Ivan Reis, particularly the two or three splash panels set during Aquaman and Mera’s final confrontation with the trench dwellers, and the story ends on a sweet note – I’ll likely not return to Aquaman next month, and this is a good a stopping point as they come.

Coming off last month’s revelations, Scott Snyder takes us into the past in Batman #4, telling a poignant story about young Bruce Wayne’s first case that helps explain why he’s so blinded to the threat posed by the Court of Owls that he ends up walking right into a trap in the final panel.

Damian’s dalliance with the dark side of Batman’s mission grows deeper and more upsetting in Batman and Robin #4, and is made all the more convincing by the stoic, numb expression he wears, courtesy of artist Patrick Gleason (who is doing career-best work on this title.)

The first nine pages of Batwoman #4 is an object lesson in the immense potential of comics as a storytelling medium – in four elegantly structured double-page spreads (plus the first page, all by itself) J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman tell two different stories, one of passion and love, the other of naïvete and violence, that comment and enrich each other – the rest of the issue continues the sequence double-page spreads, and grapples with the aftermath of the opening scenes.

I quite enjoyed Blackhawks #4 – the first story arc resolves well, and the characters feel more defined and unique four issues in – but I can’t imagine how much better this book will be next month when CAFU takes over art duties.

The bubbly mullet that Captain Atom grows after his meeting with the military goes awry in Captain Atom #4 is sort of odd, but otherwise the art was gorgeous as ever, and the story continues to meander.

Anyone still avoiding Catwoman because of the furor about the first issue should pick up issue four, as writer Judd Winick has eased back from the sensationalism and turned in an affecting character study of Selina Kyle – however, the new villain introduced in this issue is pretty lame.

Demon Knights #4 explores the origin of the Shining Knight, with lush art for the flashback/dream sequence provided by Michael Choi, and drops two very interesting hints about the future of the series, one of which I might be overanalyzing – if I’m not, then the eventual reveal will be mind-blowing.

The Flash #4 was the first mediocre issue of the series – Francis Manapul’s art is gorgeous as usual, but the story stalls almost completely in favor of exposition that doesn’t feel entirely necessary.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E #4 ended big and crazy, as I hoped it would, with more giant monsters and a last minute escape, plus a nice character moment to conclude the arc and present me with a nice jumping off point.

Geoff Johns uses separate imprisonment as an occasion for strong character moments in Green Lantern #4, giving Hal a chance to prove to himself that he loves Carol, and forcing Sinestro to literally confront his past and justify his actions.

John Constantine’s guest appearance in I, Vampire #4 feels like a ploy for readers, and it’s certainly a detour from a story that was just beginning to move in an interesting direction.

The team finally comes together in Justice League #4, and the first appearance of Darkseid in the new DC universe is suitably destructive and intense, but as the months roll on it seems like writer Geoff Johns is attempting to fuse the epic scale of Grant Morrison’s JLA with the humor and levity of the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League title – what’s more, he’s actually pulling it off.

Severed #5 takes a step back from the visceral scares of last month’s issue, but maintains an edge-of-your-seat tension the entire time as Jack begins to understand just how strange and dangerous Mr. Fisher really is.

James Robinson dips into the mythology of the Arrerente, indigenous peoples of central Australia, in The Shade #3, and uses it to spin an elaborate puzzle that the Shade must solve with his head and heart, rather than his fists.

Writer Brian Azzarello negotiates the needs of four different plotlines in Spaceman #3, helping put Orson’s plan, or lack thereof, into context and fleshing out characters that he’s likely to come in conflict with in the next few issues.

Stormwatch #4 ties the story together neatly, and showcases each member of the team as they put the alien threat down, and the cliffhanger ending raises the hope that next month’s issue will delve into the broader purpose of Stormwatch and it’s place in the DCU.

Our own Nico Vreeland was not fond of Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Torro’s vampire novel The Strain, and I wasn’t dazzled by the first issue of its comic book adaptation – Mike Huddleston is one of my new favorite artists, but his work here feels muted compared to Butcher Baker, the Righteous Maker or even The Homeland Directive.

Marco Rudy fills in for regular artist Yanick Paquette on Swamp Thing #4, but proves to be just as adept at unique layouts and horrific imagery; particularly impressive is one full-page panel that highlights the difference in Alec and Abby’s natures.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2 is packed with exposition, but it’s executed well by both guest artist Jerry Ordway and series artist Wes Craig, whose heavily shaded, dramatic inking sells the tragedy of the cliffhanger ending.

I had high hopes for Dynamite’s Voltron #1, but even the haze of nostalgia for my youth isn’t enough to make this issue a satisfying read – I’m all for altering the concept to suit modern storytelling needs (and god knows the cartoon’s major weakness was story) but Brandon Thomas’s script discards all the bits that made Voltron fun in the first place.

Much of the action in Wonder Woman #4 takes place at a metal concert as Wonder Woman enjoys the music and processes the recent revelations about her parentage – I’m fairly certain that’s a first in the character’s published history, and a further indication of just unique vision writer Brian Azzarrello has for this title.

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Looking Ahead to January

The conclusion of Warren Ellis’s Secret Avengers, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Fatale, and the long-awaited return of Bulletproof Coffin!

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.

Solid Reads

The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13

I don’t usually read The All-New Batman: the Brave and the Bold, DC’s all-ages comic spin-off of the brilliant (and sadly, canceled) cartoon, but I picked up November’s issue thirteen because it promised anunusual team-up—the Phantom Stranger gathers every Robin from the past and present, alternate timelines and realities included, to work together to save Batman’s life. The story is light, but never insults the reader. In fact, writer Sholly Fisch manages nice character moments for every Robin, using the adult Dick Grayson’s narration to highlight what makes each character unique, how they have contributed to Batman’s mission. And Rick Burchett’s art is gorgeous as ever—it’s animated, both in its clear relationship to the art style of the cartoon, and in the expressiveness of his linework. Batman fans can argue for hours about their favorite Robin, so it’s fun to see that argument given narrative form (even if Fisch is too cagey a writer to pick a favorite.) I’ll continue to drop in on this book from time to time for a frothy adventure fix.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Brave and the Bold is Spaceman #2, from writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso, the team responsible for 100 Bullets and the recent Batman: Knight of Vengence Flashpoint tie-in. With this series they trade in the noir trappings of their previous work in favor of a sci-fi flecked dystopian future that, naturally, isn’t so dissimilar from our present—news programs report almost exclusively on the exploits of reality television stars, nearly all communication and transaction takes places through handheld digital devices, and the environment has turned toxic. It’s admittedly a hair’s breadth from sounding exactly like any of a few hundred variations on the same theme that you’ve read or seen, but Azzarello tweaks the narrative by selecting as his main character Orson, one of a group of ape-like humans grown in a laboratory for the express purpose of surviving space travel to Mars. Orson now lives as a scrap salvager on a barge. In flashbacks (or possibly hallucinations) we learn that Orson and the other Spacemen made it to Mars, but something went wrong—what exactly isn’t clear yet, but presumably it’s the key to why Orson is in his present lowly state, a forgotten relic of a more ambitious time, the unfortunate freak no one really wants to associate with. Azzarello can’t completely let go of crime stories, however, and so Orson quickly gets involved in a kidnapping case, drive to heroism through a possibly misguided sense of connection to the victim. Risso’s moody art suits the story, particularly the coloring, which relies heavily on browns and muddy oranges and reds to suggest the grime of the world. For such a high concept, Spaceman is rather quiet, and often tender, or even sad—a welcome change of pace for Azzarello, who’s made a career on hard-bitten cynicism.

Secret Avengers #19

Secret Avengers #19 continues Warren Ellis’s streak of perfect single-issue espionage comics, this time paired with artist Michael Lark. Unfortunately Lark only provides breakdowns, and the finishes are handled by Stefano Gaudiano and Brian Thies, no slouches themselves but certainly not quite at Lark’s level. Still, the story is pitched just right—Captain America leads Sharon Carter, Black Widow, and Moon Knight undercover in an Eastern European (“Symkaria”—right) to take down a drug kingpin. The highlight of the issue is Moon Knight posing as a businessman seeking an escort, particularly when he uses the girl and the private room as a cover to put on his white facemask, which actually looks really cool set against his white pinstripe suit. Ellis plays comedy bits like that just right—light enough that it adds flavor but doesn’t mitigate the stakes of the adventure. The “drugs as super-power formula” plot recalls Grant Morrison, and it’s tempting to read the explosive conclusion as Ellis’s sly dig at his peer—all the talk and noise about ancient gods living inside you is so easily undone with a bottle of vodka and a lighter.

Comic Book Comics #6

Comic Book Comics #6, the final issue of Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey’s graphic history of the comic book medium, concludes the project with the secret origin of the term “graphic novel,” a compressed bio of the father of manga, Osamu Tezuka, and a history of the booms and crashes of the 90s. In the final segment the creators ponder the future of comics and argue eloquently against digital piracy. This issue hits close to home for me because I detest the use of “graphic novel” as a blanket term for all graphic literature, but even if this issue didn’t provide fodder for my personal crusade it would still come highly recommended. No history of the field is as fun, and few are as informative as Comic Book Comics.

After a brief hiatus to make way for the DC relaunch, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is back with a #1 issue, though it continues exactly where issue ten of the previous series left off, so it might as well be T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #11. Writer Nick Spencer returns, this time with Wes Craig replacing CAFU as regular artist. Craig’s loose, shadow-heavy style is a good fit for the title—it recalls Chris Samnee, maybe with a dash of Ryan Sook, both excellent touchpoints for a espionage-adventure story with an emotional undercurrent. For his part Spencer paces this issue better than the last several issues of the previous volume, moving effortlessly between Toby and Colleen’s date, an uprising of subterranean people that the Agents fail to stop, and the backstory of the Menthor helmet. Spencer is sometimes knocked, fairly I think, as a writer who drags his stories out to unnecessary lengths, but this issue finds the writer at his best, moving the pieces on the board and setting up the mechanics for all of the bad stuff that’s about to happen.

Swamp Thing #3 picks up the slack from issue two, which was a bit flat and overburdened by exposition, introducing a new villain and further complicating Alec Holland’s relationship with Abby Arcane. Writer Scott Snyder makes the most of his horror roots in this issue, crafting two terrifying scenes set in a children’s hospital, one which ratchets the tension and uncertain, and the other which releases it all in an awful, gory catharsis. Woven among those scenes is Alec and Abby’s conversation, which again heads deep into backstory and exposition, but manages not to become bogged down by it. Yanick Paquette illustrates the Alec and Abby sequences, while Victor Ibáñez does fill-ins for the hospital scenes. The two styles mesh pretty well, but its too bad Paquette can’t complete the whole issue, as the few pages he does have are beautifully laid out. He pays close attention to details in the background, populating the scenes with animals, and especially plants, that contribute to the murky mood of the story. Paquette is off the book for the foreseeable future, though I recall Snyder mentioning in an interview that his Detective Comics artist, Francesco Francavilla, was on-hand for fill-in work on the title, so fingers-crossed that we’ll see that team again soon.

Batman #3

Snyder’s other DC relaunch title this month, Batman #3, was a strong candidate for the Spotlight pick, if for no other reason than the eight-page bravura sequence in which Batman uncovers the secret of the Court of Owls, the secret society he’d previously dismissed as superstition. It’s a masterful bit of storytelling, with nearly every panel revealing some nuance of the mystery. Series artist Greg Capullo frames each page in such a way that we learn everything just as Batman does, and our uncertainty and fear grows with every subtle change in his expression, the narrowed eyes and set jaw, that suggest the hero has been thrown off his game just a bit. I still can’t stand how Capullo draws faces, particularly Bruce Wayne’s, but I can tolerate that minor annoyance when the action and detective sequences look this good. And Snyder is proving to have just as firm a command of Bruce’s voice as he did Dick Grayson’s in his Detective Comics run, using narrative captions only when necessary, never letting the reader too far inside Batman’s head. At this point he’s only been writing in the Bat-world for a full year, but the characters are so spot-on and the plots so tightly paced that it feels like several years.

One-Shots

Artist Gene Ha joins Action Comics with issue three, illustrating scenes set on Krypton just before it’s destruction, a nice contrast to the more naturalistic direction regular artist Rags Morales and writer Grant Morrison have taken with this title.

Mortiat continues to draw a perfectly dreary and violent 19th-century Gotham City in All Star Western #3, particularly the final two-page spread, one of the best endings to a single issue I’ve read in a while.

Animal Man #3 is filled with creepy moments, like the awful intestine-monster-thing hiding itself in the body of Buddy Baker’s detective friend, made all the creepier through Travel Foreman’s rough but impeccably detailed art.

I’m still waffling on Aquaman—writer Geoff Johns overcomes his usual third-issue slump and adds some knots to the story, including back matter on the creatures Aquaman and Mera have been battling and a human antagonist to complicate the hero’s life, and Ivan Reis’ art is beautiful as always, but if the pace doesn’t pick up a bit I might drop it and revisit sometime next year.

My initial worries that Batman and Robin would be a redundant title in the New 52 have been completely allayed by issue three—Peter J. Tomasi ratches up the tension considerably, playing on Damian’s hyper-aggressive tendencies for a disturbing fight scene and crafting a cliffhanger ending that brings to mind the Batman television show of the 60s as directed by David Lynch.

Batwoman #3 takes a break from the Weeping Woman plot to spotlight a few quieter character moments and introduce a new costumed hero, though co-writer and artist J.H. Williams III’s layouts are no less acrobatic and breathtaking, even when the action slows a bit.

Mike Costa handles the large cast and multiple storylines of Blackhawks #3 quite well, but I bet this title will improve dramatically when CAFU joins as regular artist with January’s issue five.

At this point I have to admit that I’m still reading Captain Atom because of Freddie Williams II’s art and Jose Villarubia’s other-worldly coloring—which isn’t to say that J.T. Krul’s plots have been bad, quite the opposite as issue three’s guest appearance by the Flash proves, but just that the story beats feel almost incidental to the visual feast.

Catwoman #3 features almost no cheesecake or titillation (what there is is only one page, and doesn’t involve Catwoman at all), but does contain one of my favorite single panels of 2011 courtesy of artist Guillem March, a low-angle shot of Selina breaking free from her captors in a flip-kick move that’s packed with movement and energy.

Mark Waid wraps up his first arc on Daredevil with issue six, showcasing exactly what makes this one of the best superhero titles on the shelves by proving that Matt Murdoch’s most remarkable ability isn’t his radar sense, or acrobatics, but his analytical mind.

For all the sex jokes and camel spider gags, DeadpoolMAX II #2 is actually a rather poignant story of self-sabotage and self-hatred, as Hydra Bob throws away a chance to reunite with his only love.

Each member of the loosely-bound team gets a character moment in Demon Knights #3, but the best is Vandal Savage’s interaction with the townspeople, which recalls The Magnificent Seven and makes me wonder if that wasn’t writer Paul Cornell’s intention with this series from the first issue.

Co-writers Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul begin gradually introducing the Flash’s classic rogues gallery in The Flash #3, and Manapul yet again proves that he’s one of the most exciting visual storytellers in comics with inventive layouts that find new ways to convey the character’s physical and mental speed.

There’s a lot of fun (and funny) action in Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E #3 but I think I’m going to drop this book at the conclusion of this arc—it’s not really a reflection on the quality of the book, but I’m just not as excited about month-to-month as I am other titles and I have to make some cuts to trim the pull list a bit. Sorry, Frank.

Green Lantern #3 left a bad taste in my mouth (not the only Geoff Johns-scripted comic to do so this month—see Justice League #3) thanks to a scene in which Hal Jordan kills an enemy in the thoughtless, emotionless manner of a bad action movie—I understand that these are superhero comics and there’s bound to be a level of violence, but it’s a characterization that doesn’t jibe with Johns’s previous work on the character, to say nothing of Green Lantern’s decades-long history.

Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov introduces two new characters to the mix in I, Vampire #3 and provides a plot element that will hopefully make this title a little less sleepy—unfortunately it also means the setting is shifting from Boston to Gotham City, which means no more scenes of vampire massacres set in a post-apocalyptic Downtown Crossing, one of my favorite things about this series.

For the first time in its two year publishing history Incorruptible is a stronger comic than its sister series Irredeemable, as Mark Waid ramps both titles up for December’s big cross-over. The political maneuvering of the former cap the reconstruction of Coalville story in a satisfying way, while the “long lost brother” plot of the latter feels like a stalling tactic (though the reveal of the Faustian bargain the interim President of the United States made with the only remaining superpowers was a jaw-dropper.)

Geoff Johns and Jim Lee continue to build the team one member at a time with Justice League #3, this time around introducing a fresh, open-hearted Wonder Woman to the gang, but the otherwise fun story is somewhat soured by either Johns’s or Lee’s decision to have Superman dismember and murder parademons in the big fight scene – it’s not just that Superman shouldn’t kill, it’s that he can’t, it’s contrary to the very nature of the character, and makes for a few off-putting action sequences.

Severed #4 broke my heart, as co-writers Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft exploit the central relationship of the book for a terrifying, and inevitable, confrontation with the title’s razor-toothed child murderer.

The James Robinson we used to know and love seems back to full strength in The Shade #2, no doubt because he’s back to writing a pet character, particularly one he happens to see as a lightly disguised version of himself.

In Stormwatch #3 Paul Cornell sets the team’s gears into motion, letting each character’s concerns and abilities work in concert with the others to address the massive, world-ending threat while also developing a B-plot about levels of distrust among teammates that will almost certainly come to fruition in the next arc.

Looking Ahead to December

Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham return to their Batman story with giant-sized Batman, Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes, David Lapham and Mike Huddleston’s comic adaptation of Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain, and a new issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle!

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The Third Annual Aaron Block Awards, Celebrating Excellence in the Comics I Read This Year, presented by Aaron Block

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“Best Story Mostly Published In 2011” Award – Detective Comics #871-881, written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Jock and Francesco Francavilla

When Scott Snyder began his eleven issue run on Detective Comics towards the end of 2010 Grant Morrison was already waist deep in a multi-year Batman story in which he’d introduced Bruce Wayne’s maniac son, reinvented the Joker, and finally killed Wayne and introduced Dick Grayson, the first Robin, as his replacement. Even Morrison’s detractors had to admit he was steering DC’s Bat-books, and any title that wasn’t directly involved in his story felt like an also-ran. But from the first issue Snyder made a compelling case for Batman stories firmly set in, but stylistically and thematically distinct from, Morrison’s status-quo. Snyder grounded the character, replacing fantastic, supernatural villains with a more disturbingly ordinary evil – interwoven in Batman’s investigations is the story of Commissioner Gordon’s estranged son, James. Jr., who may or may not have committed some horrible acts as a child and has returned to Gotham with uncertain motives.

Tension and anxiety drive the story as much, if not more, than superhero action, and it all builds to a devastating climax. That same tension is due in no small part to the efforts of Snyder’s artists, Jock and Francesco Francavilla, each of whom develops one of the two storylines – Jock on the Batman thread, Francavilla on the Gordon thread – rather than alternating issues. Their styles are radically different, but both capture the dread and uncertainty that creeps into every scene.

Snyder rode the success of his work on Detective to become one of DC’s top writers, playing a key role in the recent relaunch. In fact, Snyder’s story has, for the moment, supplanted Morrison’s as the new direction for the Bat-titles in the relaunched DCU – no small feat.

“Most Re-read Issue” Award – Secret Avengers #16, written by Warren Ellis, drawn by Jamie Mckelvie

So far every issue of Ellis’s abbreviated run on Secret Avengers has been a model of brisk, economic storytelling, but nothing since this first issue has quite matched its energy and sense of spectacle. That’s at least partly due to expectations – I had no idea what Ellis was up to with this run, an advantage subsequent issues can’t claim – but it takes capable creators to capitalize on that lack of expectation and deliver a compelling story.

Ellis is in minimalist mode here, delivering a skeletal plot that finds Captain America leading his covert/espionage team into an underground city to foil a terrorist plot that would wipe Cincinnati off the map. It’s not hard to follow, but it moves at a fast clip and the characters are quiet (except for the Beast, the teams’ resident science geek), so it feels unlike anything else on the shelves, mainstream superhero or otherwise. I read it three times in succession – first for the story and plot, second just to orient myself in the stripped down narrative approach, and third to luxuriate in the world Ellis and Mckelvie created. Mckelvie in particular deserves perhaps the most praise in this regard, as it’s his light, clean line work that renders the gray, familiar yet alien underground city with such clarity, while still choreographic dynamic action sequences. The two-page spread of Moon Knight gliding over the seemingly empty city captures both of these storytelling needs at the same time, suggesting the grace and fluidity of the character’s flight, and juxtaposing it with the terrifying sameness of the buildings and streets below.

Our heroes save the day, naturally, but because this is a Warren Ellis comic they are at least aware of the compromises they made for safety, and at least one character seems to need some convincing that his actions can be reconciled with his morality. But Ellis gets all of that across in the span of two word balloons – there’s no time for navel gazing in a book this compact.

“Best Mini-Series Featuring an Icon of my Childhood” – The Rocketeer Adventures #1-4, written and drawn by various creators

The quality of the talent who contributed to this anthology title – including Mark Waid, Darwyn Cooke, Tommy Lee Edwards, Michael Kaluta, Kurt Busiek, and many others – made it a must-read, even if it wasn’t about one of my favorite characters. But more than just an excuse to see top-flight creators at work, this series is a love letter to the late Dave Stevens, who created the Rocketeer – the affection is evident in the flexibility and nuance of the art, and the clever storytelling that keeps four issues of short, pulpy adventure stories featuring the same characters from becoming repetitive. Several creators – Busiek and Cooke in particular – centered their stories not on Cliff’s exploits, but on his girlfriend Betty, rewriting the perennial “pretty hostage” trope of the Disney film to reveal the clever, capable character Stevens intended.

Four issues is a satisfying length, but I’d happily read new Rocketeer stories every month. Hopefully IDW will continue working with the Stevens estate to produce more material that meets the high standards set by this collection.

“Most Surprising About-Face” – Catwoman #1-3, written by Judd Winnick and drawn by Guillem March

To be honest, I laughed when I finished the first issue of this series. The now infamous scene of Catwoman and Batman consummating their relationship in-panel was so absurd that I could only marvel at writer Judd Winick’s gall – to take all the innuendo and pent-up energy of 70-plus years of Batman and Catwoman stories and up the ante read as a desperate miscalculation, sure to end poorly for creators and publisher alike. Sure enough, the controversy machine instantly hummed to life, and soon it felt like every comic fan, even those who hadn’t read the issue in question, were choosing sides in a debate about sexism and gender iniquity. Far from a prude, I still found myself in favor of restraint – a little lurid fun is one thing, but the hypersexuality of this issue seemed to emphasize all the most embarrassing failings of mainstream superhero comics.

And yet, I bought the second issue. Partly out of morbid curiosity about exactly how Winnick would follow-up his first act, but largely because I was drawn into the story, super-sex aside, and because the book is gorgeous. Guillem March’s art tends a bit towards the “Good Girl” cheesecake style of artists like Adam Hughes and Art Adams, but with dynamic layouts and action in place of posing, and a strong sense of texture that locates the art in a specific material reality. And Winnick, no stranger to twisted crime stories, knows how to build and release narrative tension – Catwoman’s predilection for violence is just as often used to make the reader uncomfortable as it is to satisfy the “villain brought to justice” narrative arc.

As of issue three, this is one of the titles I most anticipate every month. The indelible specter of Bat-coitus isn’t enough to mar what’s turning out to be a compelling, exquisitely rendered comic.

“Tour de Force” Award – Daredevil #1-6, written by Mark Waid, drawn by Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin

Though this is a new series featuring a character that’s been around for nearly 50 years, it isn’t a relaunch or a reinvention or a re-anything – it’s simply a veteran writer bringing exciting, dynamic concepts to a troubled, but beloved, property and knowing when to step back and let his artists discover new possibilities in the medium. Without ignoring the past, Waid has managed to free Daredevil from needlessly complicated and dour storylines, trading the excess pathos in for a bit of fun. It helps that his artists are stylists who reach back to Steve Ditko and Gene Colan for inspiration – both Rivera and Martin employ clean, thin lines and just enough detailing that the figures and backgrounds feel real without cluttering the page. And they’re equally fond of complex layouts that push the story forward, first, but double as feats of uncanny technical prowess. Daredevil is maybe the best argument that mature comics don’t have to be angsty and hyperviolent.

Honorable Mentions:

Xombi #1-6, written by John Rozum, drawn by Frazer Irving

Batman, Incorporated #1-8, written by Grant Morrison, drawn by various

The Red Wing #1-4, written by Jonathan Hickman, drawn by Nick Pitarra

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1-10, written by Nick Spencer, drawn by CAFU with guest spots by about a dozen legendary artists

The Homeland Directive, written by Robert Vendetti, drawn by Mike Huddleston

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.

Batman #1: Following up on his instant classic Detective Comics run, Scott Snyder returns to Gotham City, but with Bruce Wayne behind the cowl instead of Dick Grayson. The tone of this new title isn’t nearly as dark or desperate as that previous run—at least, not in this first issue—but that doesn’t mean Snyder has lowered the stakes of his story. In fact, by playing up both Bruce Wayne and Batman as characters in the book, Snyder manages to craft a broader, yet deeper, story than just about anything else I read in the relaunch. And though I much prefer Snyder’s previous Bat-artists, Francesco Francavilla and Jock, to longtime Spawn artist Greg Capullo, I’d be hard pressed to say the art is low quality. Pulled.

Batman – The Dark Knight #1: This book read like the opposite number to Snyder’s Batman—it does a lot of the same things, but with none of the nuance or complexity or charm. Artist David Finch co-plotted this issue with writer Paul Jenkins, but neither creator managed to steer this story away from self-parody. And while I normally enjoy (or at least tolerate) Finch’s artwork, it’s nowhere near enough to redeem this title. Pass.

Batman – Detective Comics #1: Sadly, this Bat-title wasn’t so good, either. Detective should, like Action Comics, be a flagship title (it is the company’s namesake, after all) but instead it feels like just another re-tread of territory Frank Miller already covered in The Dark Knight Returns. Writer/artist Tony Daniel has been a presence in the Bat-office for several years now, first as the artist for much of the first half of Grant Morrison’s run, then as writer and artist on the Batman title. And though his penciling has certainly improved in that time, taking on a rougher, more expressive quality closer to (again) Frank Miller than Jim Lee, his story and character ideas fall flat. Pass.

Batman and Robin #1: After an excellent three-issue run on the title several months ago writer Peter J. Tomasi and artist Patrick Gleason are back on Batman and Robin. They’re a perfect fit for this title—Tomasi latches onto the characters’ voices early on (his Damian is still a little off, though) and Gleason is equally adept at action sequences and quieter, moodier moments. The splash page of Bruce and Damian in the middle of the book says everything about what this title should be—Batman and Robin fighting side-by-side in bright action sequences. Special praise goes to colorist John Kalisz, who gets the contrast of light and dark just right. Pulled.

Batgirl #1: Before Batgirl even hit the shelves it was a controversial title—solicitations revealed that Barbara Gordon, who for years had been used effectively by several creators (most especially Gail Simone) as the wheelchair-bound techno-sleuth Oracle, would heal miraculously and return to her heroic former identity, Batgirl. Oracle fans protested the move, fans of Stephanie Brown (the then-current Batgirl) raised a stink, DC and Simone explained their reasoning, and everyone wrung their hands. The result was a rather straight-forward comic with solid but unremarkable art from Ardian Syaf. Simone created a frightening new villain, but nothing else really stood out—somewhat surprising, considering Simone’s pedigree. I’ll keep an eye on this one, but for now I don’t have enough room in the pull list for titles that don’t excite me. Pass.

Batwing #1: A spin-off from Grant Morrison’s Batman, Inc., Batwing follows the adventures of David Zavimbe, the Batman of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I had high hopes for this title going in, not only because I enjoy the Batman, Inc. concept, but because I’m in favor of diversity in superhero comics, both in the characters and settings. Writer Judd Winick delivers a gruesome story that addresses tribal conflict in the Congo, but at times it felt a bit self-congratulatory. Ben Oliver’s painterly style is a good fit, particularly in the more violent sequences, but I think this will be a month-to-month decision. Peek.

Batwoman #1: After several significant delays (it was originally solicited for February) Kate Kane’s solo title has finally found a home in The New 52. The highly anticipated follow-up to Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III’s run with the character in Detective Comics a few years ago, the new title finds Williams once again experimenting with layouts that more closely resemble tableaux than standard comic pages. He’s also co-writing the book with W. Haden Blackman, and though they’ve managed to keep the characters consistent and crafted an intriguing mystery, I still felt Rucka’s absence. That’s my issue, though, not the fault of the creators, and hopefully it’ll fade in the coming months. Pulled.

Birds of Prey #1: This book was a pleasant surprise. I’m not sure why, but I expected a lot of gritted teeth and burdensome drama. Instead, writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Jesus Saiz delivered a madcap adventure story, complete with sassy getaway driver and in-over-his-head reporter. Swierczynski has a great ear for dialogue, and if I’m not in love with Saiz’s art, it’s atmospheric and fits the setting perfectly. I’m not sure if I’ll be picking it up regularly, but it might be fun to drop in on occasionally. Peek.

Blackhawks #1: I’ve read good things about Mike Costa’s work on IDW’s G.I. Joe titles, so I was curious to see what he would with what is essentially DC’s version of that property. No longer just a squad of international pilots, these Blackhawks are a full-bore private army, complete with codenames and specialties. Costa introduces the various characters one-by-one, highlighting their individual quirks and foibles without crossing too far into caricature, and manages to make a somewhat generic “masked evil army attack” scene tense and fun. That said, it’s a slow start, and subsequent issues will likely reveal whether this is a title I want to keep reading or not. Pulled, for now.

Back to top

Part 2

Blue Beetle #1: Blue Beetle wasn’t relaunched so much as rewound—the new origin very closely resembles the old one (which was only about six or seven years ago, anyway). I think this issue would’ve worked better if writer Tony Bedard had thrown readers into the middle of Jaime’s story and let them catch up rather than wiping a relatively fresh slate clean. I did enjoy Ig Guara’s art, which is in the classic superhero vein of veteran artists like José Luis García-López (who, come to think of it, is conspicuously absent from the relaunch) and perfectly suited to a teen-hero book like this. But it’s not enough to bring me back to a warmed-over story. Pass.

Captain Atom #1: Freddie Williams II is a perpetually underrated artist, but hopefully his work on Captain Atom will change that. He’s adapted his cartooning into a painterly approach, similar to the shift Francs Manapul undertook when he started penciling Adventure Comics and The Flash. And Williams contrasts that lush and somewhat hazy look with to rough and sketchy panels to draw contrast between Captain Atom’s glowing post-science presence and the grimy matter of reality. Colorist Jose Villarubia’s eerie blues and reds sell the energy that flows from the character, making the link between Atom and Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen all the more obvious. Unfortunately J.T. Krul’s writing is a bit dull, and the dialogue fails whenever Captain Atom interacts with his human supporting cast. If the story doesn’t pick up I’m not sure how long I’ll stick around, but I’m in for at least another issue just to enjoy the art. Pulled, for now.

Catwoman #1: A sexy Catwoman book doesn’t bother me, because sex has been a part of the character’s make-up for 70 years. She flirts with and teases Batman, she carries a whip, and it’s all fun. Even Grant Morrison recently implied that some off-panel sex is a natural extension of Batman and Catwoman’s relationship in Batman, Inc. But the key term there is off-panel—not in a splash page of the first issue of Catwoman’s new series. No matter how gorgeous Guillem March’s artwork is (except for some awkward posing that has Batman looking more like a corpse Selina has dug up and straddled), the scene is still creepy. Add onto that the preponderance of body shots throughout the issue, and the whole book just felt like something you wouldn’t be proud to read on the bus. Outside of the final scene, though, Winick told a compelling story, and seems to have nailed Catwoman’s voice, so I’m at a bit of an impasse. I’ll probably pick up the next issue just out of perverse curiosity to see what Batman and Catwoman’s pillow talk is like, and then wait to see how later story arcs shape up. Pulled for one more issue, then peek.

DC Universe Presents: Deadman #1: Here’s an odd case—DCU Presents: Deadman told a compelling story through strong visuals and a compelling script, but I won’t be picking it up next month. Writer Paul Jenkins conceives of the Deadman as kind of a superheroic Quantum Leap, with the ghostly character inhabiting the bodies of others in order to teach them the value of their own lives. But Deadman seems to struggle within the life of a disabled veteran, and so makes a drastic decision that ends in a cliffhanger. It’s structured well, but awfully dour—downbeat stories usually aren’t a problem for me, but this is just a bit too much to take. I’ll come back in three months when Jenkins moves on to another character and, hopefully, a lighter story. Pass.

Deathstroke #1: Villain-centric titles can be a difficult sell, especially when the villain in question is a hired assassin like Deathstroke—while he may make an excellent foil for the Teen Titans or the Justice League, Deathstroke is generally characterized as a perfect, ruthless killer and businessman, a type that I find difficult to relate to as a reader. Kyle Higgins does his best to make the title interesting and fun, but even the twist in the end that pits Deathstroke against his three obnoxious assassin-trainees isn’t enough to make me like the character, or want to know what happens to him next. Joe Bennet’s art is solid, but not solid enough to merit further reading. Pass.

Demon Knights #1: Paul Cornell is one of the few mainstream comic writers to use humor effectively, and Demon Knights is only the latest example of that skill. He seems to understand better than his peers that humor beats only work if they’re tied to the story and not just awkward dialogue. Accompanying the comedy is a fantasy adventure story, featuring DC’s stable of mystical and medieval characters, including Etrigan the Demon, Madame Xanadu, and the Shining Knight (borrowing heavily from Grant Morrison’s reinvention of the character). Diogenes Neves provides clean, kinetic pencils, equally suited to both the quieter and the more action-reliant scenes. Demon Knights is easily one of the strongest titles of the relaunch. Pulled.

Flash #1: I adored the first arc of Geoff Johns’ run on the most recent Flash title, with Francis Manapul on art duties. Manapul’s action sequences were endlessly inventive, particularly the framing techniques he used to convey the character’s speed, and always complemented Johns’s story. Johns has moved on, and Manapul and colorist Brian Buccellato have stepped into co-writing duties, but the title feels largely the same as it did before. Maybe their pacing isn’t quite as tight as Johns’s, but the characters’ voices are spot-on and, best of all, Manapul continues to up his art game. His soft, minimalist pencils and Buccellato’s color washes make this one of the most striking books on the shelves. Pulled.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1: Apparently Jeff Lemire’s Flashpoint miniseries about Frankenstein and the Creature Commandos was practice for this ongoing title, which sees the writer returning to those characters, albeit in a new setting and with a superior artist on hand. Alberto Ponticelli’s loose, sketchy pencils suit the monstrous heroes and lend the title a bit of edge. Lemire establishes a rich universe in this story, with microscopic headquarters and hordes of rampaging monsters, all set in a small country town. And if his Frankenstein isn’t quite the Milton-quoting death dealer Grant Morrison created for Seven Soldiers of Victory, he’s nevertheless an imposing and intriguing lead. Pulled.

The Fury of the Firestorms #1: This one’s an out-and-out mess, all the more egregious because of the talent involved: Ethan Van Sciver, better known for his art and tendency to hide dirty words in his panels than his storytelling skills, co-writes with the usually reliable Gail Simone, whose presence is barely felt in this issue. They replace established characters with broad, bland clichés (the jock who’s sensitive on the inside, the nerd who’s angry on the outside) and then needlessly complicate the Firestorm concept. Artist Yildiray Cinar does some interesting work with the material, but everything is already too far gone that it doesn’t even matter. Pass.

Green Arrow #1: Oliver Queen received one of the most radical overhauls of the relaunch—significantly de-aged, the arrogant, leftist Robin Hood persona has been replaced by a wise-cracking teenager (possibly early 20s, it’s hard to tell) who runs a corporation and foils assassination attempts simultaneously. It’s not a bad reimagining by any means, but it is a bit staid. Modern writers had a tendency to overuse Ollie’s politics and attitude to substitute for character growth, but at least the voice was unique. There’s little that distinguishes this new Green Arrow from dozens of similar characters. Much as I enjoyed Dan Jurgens’s pencils, I won’t be returning to this title next month. Pass.

Green Lantern #1: I followed Green Lantern for a few months during the Blackest Night event and enjoyed what Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke did with the book, but stopped reading shortly after that. By most accounts I made the right decision, as the book seemed to veer way off into the multi-color Lantern plot, forgetting what makes the Green Lantern concept compelling. Both creators remain on the title for the relaunch, and, though they pick up exactly where they left off in August, the book feels refreshed. Mahnke’s art is as rich as its ever been, so it must be Johns who’s changed—the plot feels tighter and more compact, and he allows strong character moments for Hal, Carol Ferris, and Sinestro. I’m glad this title is back on track, and hope it stays that way for a while. Pulled.

Green Lantern Corps #1: As happy as I am to be reading a Green Lantern book again, I’m not sure I need to read two. Peter J. Tomasi is generally a strong writer, and has a proven track record with the substitute Lantern characters (Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and others) but I don’t know what I can get from this title that I don’t already get in the main Lantern book. And as good as Fernando Pasarin’s art is, I’ll take Dough Mahnke’s over it every time. Not that I’m forced to choose between the two, of course—if Green Lantern Corps was a must-read, then I’d happily add it to the list. Unfortunately it’s only ok, and that’s just not enough to make room for it month to month. Pass.

Green Lantern: New Guardians #1: And if I can’t justify reading two Green Lantern books, then I definitely don’t have room for a third, even if this one does feature Kyle Rayner, my favorite Lantern. Writer Tony Bedard handles Kyle well, but the real focus of this book seems to be the multi-hued Lantern corps, which contributed so much to the derailing of Green Lantern over the past year and a half. I’d rather not wade into that mess again, and nothing about Bedard’s script or Tyler Kirkham’s art makes a strong case for why I should. Pass.

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Part 3

Grifter #1: A refugee from the Wildstorm imprint, this book marks the characters introduction to the larger DCUniverse. Writer Nathan Edmonson crafts a slightly different origin for the character, playing up the con-man angle but retaining the “alien horde disguised as humans” adversary that gives the concept its sci-fi/supernatural edge. CAFU, late of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, provides his typically clean pencils, and colorist Andrew Dalhouse lends the action scenes a cobalt glow, which particularly suits the ghost-like renderings of the Daemonites. It’s all very sharp, but somewhat deliberate. I understand that this is meant to help new readers catch up, so I think I’ll sit it out for now and wait to see what the future brings. Pass, for now.

Hawk and Dove #1: This title was on a short leash even before I opened it. Not even the participation of Sterling Gates, a writer I’ve enjoyed in the past, was enough to mitigate the Leifeld factor. I’ve never been a fan of his work, and even allowing that this is the most successful and coherent Leifeld art I’ve seen it’s still pretty awful. Every character is forever in the throes of some kind of deeply felt anger or excitement, complete with gritted teeth, even when the conversation and setting are relatively tame. This book probably appeals to someone, but not me. Pass.

I, Vampire #1: It’s easy to read this title as bait for Twilight readers who haven’t sated their vampire needs through books, movies, television shows, other comics, video games, and social networking games, but there’s a lot going on within these pages. True, the plot hinges on young, attractive vampire types going through some relationship trauma, but writer Joshua Hale Fialkov uses that emotional strife as the background for a rather violent, apocalyptic survival tale. And if there was still doubt, the hazy, sketchy art from penciler Andrea Sorrentino and colorist Marcelo Maiolo makes it clear that this is isn’t the comic you might’ve expected from looking at the cover. I didn’t expect to like I, Vampire at all, but this issue hooked me. Pulled.

Justice League #1: Probably the most anticipated book of the relaunch, for several reasons. Writer Geoff Johns and artist Jim Lee are two of the biggest names in the industry, not to mention key players in DC’s corporate hierarchy. Also, Justice League shipped the last week of August with Flashpoint #5 and before any of the other books hit the shelves—this was a load-bearing title for sure, and it’s not for nothing that DC promoted it as the title that will fill in details of the new continuity. So for all that hype, it was pretty good—mostly a Batman/Green Lantern team-up book, it delivered some solid action beats and cliffhanger ending that’s no less exciting for the number of times we’ve read it before. But the characters were a bit too broad, and the story a bit too thin for such a crucial book. Pulled, with hope for something meatier soon.

Justice League Dark #1: Like Animal Man and Swamp Thing, Justice League Dark seems intended to blend some of the Vertigo imprint’s “mature” sensibilities with DC’s superhero titles. Several of the characters who make up this informal team were core Vertigo properties (one, John Constantine, remains so—Hellblazer #284 will be published in October) and writer Peter Milligan (who, incidentally, also writes Hellblazer) was part of the influx of English creators, including Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman, who helped define the tone of what Vertigo would become. Unfortunately, the tone and content don’t quite match—Milligan aims for dark and unsettling, but it’s hard to maintain that atmosphere in a scene where Superman and Wonder Woman wade into battle against a horde of magic teeth. Mikel Janin’s glossy art doesn’t help; everything and everyone looks preserved, which doesn’t entirely suit a title built around magic and sorcery. I might check this one out again if/when the art team changes, but until then I’m not interested. Pass.

Justice League International #1: Dan Jurgens was one of my favorite creators when I was younger, so I was excited to see what he would do upon returning to a Justice League title, even if just as a writer. Jurgens has fun with the team-building structure, particularly how the “international” aspect of the team gives him a chance to explore some less-celebrated characters, and to create one of his own. Penciler Aaron Lopresti, known for his clean if somewhat conventional (and, honestly, Jurgens-esque) approach to superheroes is a solid pick for the book, but this doesn’t feel like essential reading. Pass, for now.

Legion Lost #1: I’m not a stranger to the Legion of Superheroes—one of the first titles I remember looking for in discount back issue bins was Mark Waid and Tom McCraw’s mid-90s run (with art by Stuart Immonen!), and I was a devoted reader of Waid and Barry Kitson’s mid-2000s reboot – but this issue baffled me. Like the Batman and Green Lantern titles, the Legion books (this one and Legion of Superheroes) aren’t getting the full-on relaunch treatment, which might explain why I felt a bit adrift reading this issue, since I wasn’t reading the previous incarnation of Legion. But some of the blame must fall on writer Paul Levitz, who has a history with these characters and seems to be writing for the very vocal long-time Legion readers (the very same readers who so hated Waid’s reboot, a series I enjoyed immensely.) Good for them, but not for me. Pass.

Legion of Superheroes #1: More of the same here, alas. Francis Portela’s art in this issue is nowhere near as clear and clever as Pete Wood’s in Legion Lost, but it has a retro 80s feeling, like George Perez-lite, that’s appropriate given how much this title looks to the past. Maybe I’m just too disconnected from these titles to appreciate what Levitz is doing, but an interesting plot isn’t worth much if I can’t connect with the characters populating it. Pass.

Men of War #1: I wanted very much to like this book—I’ve always enjoyed war comics, possibly a consequence of reading stray issues of Semper Fi and The ‘Nam when I was a kid—but page after page it kept letting me down. Writer Ivan Brandon creates a suffocating atmosphere of bloviation and posturing—the soldiers more closely resemble hyper-war video game characters than human beings fighting a real war. Artist Tom Derenick doesn’t help matters, thickening the already impenetrable plot with a lot of shadow and incoherent framing. Jonathan Vankin and Phil Winslade contribute a second feature that’s considerably brighter, but suffers from dialogue, laden with definitions and explanations of military, that woefully underestimates its audience. Pass.

Mister Terrific #1: One of the more compelling new characters of the past decade, Mister Terrific deserves a more interesting take than what this issue delivers. It seems almost quaint to have the third smartest man in the world spending time fighting battle-suited bad guys in London when he could be using his intellect to fight ideas and save the future. I’m playing armchair writer, but I feel like Eric Wallace and DC missed an opportunity by taking the more conventional route with this title. Gianluca Gugliotta’s pencils are expressive and fluid on one page, distracting and contorted on the next, and seem to get steadily less appealing towards the end. The redesigned costume is cool, but that’s about it. Pass.

Nightwing #1: No matter how good this issue was—and it was quite good—it’s hard to see Dick Grayson return to his Nightwing duds after his three-year (our time) sojourn filling in as Batman. Writer Kyle Higgins has experience writing Grayson (see this summer’s Gates of Gotham mini-series) and so the transition is easier to swallow. The character’s voice is still light and hopeful, but serious when it comes to tracking down and subduing an acrobatic assassin. Eddy Barrows’s pencils are better suited to the darkness of Gotham City than the small towns and cities of his recent Superman work, and his framing choices and choreography highlight the circus performer in Grayson’s past. I’m already getting my Nightwing fix in Batman, so I’m not adding this to the list, but I’ll watch for future developments that could make it a must-read. Pass.

O.M.A.C. #1: I think this qualifies as the biggest surprise of the relaunch. Previous writing efforts by DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio left me flat, and though veteran creator Keith Giffen was also on hand as co-writer and artist I didn’t expect this issue to be anything more than a goof. In fact, it’s a satisfying pastiche of Jack Kirby, who created O.M.A.C. in the mid 70s, that maintains an amused tone without resorting to flat jokes or self-satisfied referencing. Key to this is Giffen’s art, which echoes the broad, dynamic physicality of Kirby’s work but doesn’t slavishly recreate it. The story rushes along, but DiDio and Giffen hit some strong character moments and revise some elements of Kirby’s creation in provocative ways. Fun as it is, this is probably a book I’ll pick up during a light week. Peek.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1: I hate these kinds of stories—two or more ultra-macho dudes team up, compete to have the most cynical, jaded world view, and out-quip each other in the middle of chaotic gun battles. Throw in a dramatically sexualized female companion, and you’ve got the set-up for hundreds of awful novels, movies, music videos, and comics, including this one. Writer Scott Lobdell springs this noxious trope on two characters I generally loathe, Jason Todd and Roy Harper, and wastes the interesting, complex Starfire in the “babe” role. Kenneth Rocafort’s pencils are fine for this kind of thing, but I just don’t care. Pass.

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Part 4

Red Lanterns #1: Peter Milligan’s other step into the mainstream DCU fares better than Justice League Dark, and better than the other two Green Lantern spinoff titles. Despite my antipathy to the spectrum Lantern concept, I enjoyed this look at how the Red Lantern Corps operates. It is slightly jarring to see Atrocitus, a fanged, blood-spewing monster, feeling a bit down and taking a walk down memory lane to revitalize his sense of outrage, but Milligan works some pathos into the story and manages to introduce a bit of nuance to a character that I’ve only ever thought of as an aggressive adversary. Ed Benes’s art is as glossy and highly-rendered as ever, which suits the atmosphere of violence and blood that surrounds the Corps. I might follow-up on this title next month, but most likely it’ll fall to the bottom of the list in favor of stronger titles. Peek.

Resurrection Man #1: One of several cult books DC published in the late 90s (Chase, Chronos, and Major Bummer among the others) Resurrection Man was a high-concept title that I had no time for as a young reader obsessed with the Justice League and Batman books. I was happy to sample it for the first time as part of the relaunch, but closed the title feeling just slightly underwhelmed. Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who co-created the character, introduce the concept efficiently—every time Mitch Shelly dies he’s resurrected with a new super power, kind of a metaphysical twist on Dial H for Hero—and they build in a nice cliffhanger, but the fight on the plane and the angelic/demonic harbinger didn’t hook me as much as a less compressed story might’ve. I’m not overly fond of Fernando Dagnino’s sketchy pencils, either, though they suit the story and tone quite well. Pass, but I’ll pick up the trade of the original series when it’s released in January.

The Savage Hawkman #1: For a comic with “savage” in the title this issue was quite stingy with action sequences—and what action did make the cut is muddy and incoherent. Tony Daniel’s writing here isn’t nearly as derivative as his work on Detective Comics, but his characters and plots still feel like generic vehicles for exercises in voice and tone rather than elements of storytelling. Billy Tan’s messy penciling doesn’t help matters, nor does the awful redesign of Hawkman (not Tan’s fault—that one rests with either Cully Hamner or Jim Lee, possibly both.) I’d actually like to see Daniel, whose art I generally like, apply his new style to a Hawkman title written by somebody (anybody) else, so here’s hoping for an editorial shakeup down the line. Pass.

Static Shock #1: Another case of a book that isn’t bad by any means, just not very compelling, and certainly not different enough to compete with titles like Animal Man or O.M.A.C. I’ve been a fan of Scott McDaniel’s art since his work on Nightwing in the late 90s, but his dense, blurred pencils seem don’t quite suit the light, joke-heavy script. McDaniel is also co-writing the book with John Rozum, late of Xombi and co-creator of Static (who dates back to the same Milestone imprint that launched Xombi in the early 90s), but little of Rozum’s whimsy or inventiveness is on display here. Pass.

Stormwatch #1: Paul Cornell’s second title in the DC relaunch is a revision of the Wildstorm property, retaining many of the characters from Warren Ellis’s second volume of the series, and later The Authority (including the Midnighter, Apollo, Jack Hawksmoor and Jenny Sparks), and adding the Martian Manhunter as a nod towards the title’s integration with the larger DCU. Typical of Cornell, the story is brisk and dialogue is central to the storytelling—Cornell is versatile with voice, and manages to distinguish between characters without sacrificing the overall tone of light cynicism. It doesn’t seem that Stormwatch will be as political or sarcastic as The Authority, but what Cornell sacrifices in tone he makes up for in scope. The story develops on three or four fronts at once, but never strays into incoherence. The one lowlight is Miguel Sepulveda’s art, particularly his expressions, which feel contorted and awkward at times. But that could just be first issue kinks to be worked out later, and Cornell’s writing is too compelling to pass up. Pulled.

Suicide Squad #1: This was the most uneven issue of the entire relaunch—I alternately loved it and hated it, sometimes from one page to another. Writer Adam Glass employs a clever exposition scheme to cover the revised origins of several familiar characters, including Deadshot and Harley Quinn, opening the story with the team captured and bound by a gang seeking information about their government employer and then using each interrogation to flashback to the character’s past. Some of those flashbacks are intriguing, others are ridiculous, and throughout Glass’s attempts at edgy humor in the dialogue are punishing. But when he achieved the right balance of desperation and despair, the book really worked. I’m not patient enough to negotiate the see-sawing in quality on a monthly basis, though, so I’ll skip this one. Pass.

Superboy #1: Having enjoyed his art on this Spring’s Nick Spencer-scripted Jimmy Olsen one-shot, I was happy to see R.B. Silva participating in the DC relaunch, but less enthusiastic that his assignment was Superboy. His cartooning is smooth and clean, and suits a story populated by younger characters, including Conner Kent and a mysterious red-headed scientist who may or may not be related to a prominent villain. Writer Scott Lobdell relies heavily on first-person narration to fill out scenes of Superboy floating in a containment tank, which makes this a big of a chore to read. He makes up for it with a twisty, conspiracy-mystery story, though. I won’t be picking this up because I can’t stand the character and the script wasn’t so intriguing that I could overcome that bias. Pass, hoping that R.B. Silva soon lands a new appointment on a book I’m more inclined to read.

Supergirl #1: Speaking of artists getting some well-deserved attention, Mahmud Asrar nabbed a rather high-profile gig in Supergirl. He’s attentive to the quiet, paranoid mood of the piece, and renders the action smoothly, with dynamic, coherent layouts. Visually, this issue feels different from every other title in the relaunch, but the script from writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson relies on some familiar tropes, like the nameless army that unwittingly goes up against the superhero, albeit this time in giant mech suits. But I like how they portray Supergirl’s disorientation upon landing on Earth, her memories of Krypton conflicting with the information she’s able to glean from her new, suddenly hostile surroundings. They play the Superman card a bit too early for my taste, but I’ll see what next month holds before I decide how far I want to go with this title. Peek.

Superman #1: First, the redesign of Superman’s costume is just awful. The standard design is an international icon, an instantly recognizable symbol of compassion and honesty and truth, a simple and stunning clash of primary colors that became the template for super-suits for 60-70 years or so. Now, outfitted in armored plating and knee pads and a Nehru collar, Superman looks ridiculous. His presence in other titles is jarring and absurd, not awe-inspiring as it should be, and it isn’t any easier to take in his solo title. On top of that, George Perez’s script is so bloated and deliberate it makes Superboy #1 seem like a comic strip by comparison. But for all that content, the story is dull and dry—Superman fights a fire creature, Lois Lane takes over as a television news producer, and that’s about it. Artist Jesus Merino does his best to keep up with the layouts, but everything is packed so tightly together that I dreaded turning the page. A disappointing turn for an industry vet like Perez. Pass.

Swamp Thing #1: Scott Snyder seems more than comfortable exploring the Bat-world, but this title seems closer to his wheelhouse—a horror writer at heart, Swamp Thing gives Snyder the opportunity explore a different set of impulses than those he’s currently exercising in Batman. And in doing so he serves new and old readers alike, tapping the deep Swamp Thing mythos to tell a story about Alec Holland’s reckoning with his destiny, but explaining enough that any one can pick up the book and step into the plot. Artist Yanick Paquette is in fine form here, taking full advantage of his minutely detailed rendering to fill the backgrounds with plantlife, so much that it almost feels stifling just to dive into a page. The quality of the art and writing, plus the promise of back-up stories drawn by Francesco Francavilla make this a must. Pulled.

Teen Titans #1: The past three years haven’t been entirely kind to Tim Drake, who was the third Robin for over two decades, and carried his own solo series for 183 issues. When Bruce Wayne “died” and Grant Morrison brought Dick Grayson in as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin, Tim was left to adopt his own identity, the anemic Red Robin. He continued to play a supporting role in the Bat-titles, but was rarely used to effect (even Morrison seemed to struggle with the character’s role in The Return of Bruce Wayne.) Now the relaunch has come and shuffled his identity again, further distancing him from Bruce and Dick and shouldering him with an awful bird-themed costume and the dire responsibility of organizing a brand new Teen Titans. Writer Scott Lobdell adds insult to injury by lending the typically reserved and intelligent character some of the macho posturing he brought to Red Hood and the Outlaws. Wonder Girl and Kid Flash also show up and are instantly unlikeable. Brett Booth provides unexceptional pencils, nowhere near the polish of his work on Justice League of America just a few months prior. Pass.

Voodoo #1: Like Grifter, Voodoo introduces a long-time Wildstorm character into the DCU by massaging her origin slightly and introducing an “on-the-run” story engine to keep questions about the character circling for at least a few more issues. But writer Ron Marz takes a decidedly slower approach, setting the action almost entirely within a strip club where the title character is performing. Marz and artist Sami Basri pander to the male gaze but it’s not less embarrassing than the sex in Catwoman, though considering what we learn about Voodoo in the final pages the logic of the setting falls apart completely. But Sami Basri’s art is gorgeous, so it might be worth looking into this title next month, particularly if Marz opts to ease up on the cheesecake. Peek.

Wonder Woman #1: Writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang previously teamed up five years ago on the Doctor 13 back-up feature in Tales of the Unexpected, a clever parody of DC’s editorial policy in the guise of a mad-cap adventure and easily one of my favorite modern stories. They re-team on Wonder Woman, and though it doesn’t have Doctor 13’s satirical edge this is nonetheless a smart comic. Azzarello introduces us to the new Wonder Woman without resorting to typical origin-story tropes—no first-person narration, no flashbacks, just the character fighting the monsters of myth and defending the innocent. Cliff Chiang’s art is, as always, peerless. Pulled.

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The Tally

19 pulls 6 peeks, 27 passes – a surprisingly balanced grouping. Overall, I liked nearly every title that I would’ve picked up anyway (Action Comics, Batman, the Flash, etc.) and was pleasantly surprised by a few I wouldn’t have tried had they been launched in a different context (O.M.A.C. and I, Vampire). There were several titles I out and out disliked, but I’ve never wanted to read every book DC put out, so that makes sense.

Unfortunately, even 19 new titles is, for me, financially unsustainable—if I read only DC books it would be one thing, but I have a solid selection of comics from Marvel, Image, and other publishers that I don’t intend to drop. And that doesn’t even consider new titles to come from DC, including James Robinson’s Shade miniseries and his Justice Society of America on-going that I hope to add to the list. I expect the number of pulls to dwindle in the months to come as I make some tough decisions about what to read. But that agonizing is all part of the fun of being a comic book reader.

[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.

Solid Reads

If it wasn’t abundantly clearly in the first two issues, The Red Wing #3 confirms that writer Jonathan Hickman isn’t interested in the familiar, or comfortable. Reading this issue was disorienting, but satisfyingly so—the plot whips from a big action set-piece involving an invasion from the future to Dom’s father, still stuck in the past and recently abducted by an angry, aggressive version of Dom from a parallel timeline. It’s a lot to take in, and that’s without getting into Evil Dom’s explanation of how time travelers can also cross into alternate realities, and how he’s using that ability to create a “better” world. But if the mechanics are sometimes confusing, Hickman’s themes—the anger of youth and the guilt of their parents—lie just under the surface of all that pseudo-science. And as always, artist Nick Pitarra delivers exactingly rendered pages, including every possible detail of the big Red Wing space fight, or the bits of ship and pilot that dissociate into component parts when they crash into time. His art, and Rachelle Rosenberg’s colors, root the story in something we can comprehend, which makes Hickman’s philosophizing easier to swallow.

The first punch of the fight that’s been brewing through three issues of X-Men: Schism is finally thrown in issue four. It’s a pay-off for readers who have been waiting for the cracks to show, but I am more interested in the moment just before the fight, when the real tension between Cyclops and Wolverine is brought to the surface. In a sentence, the tone of the conflict changes—this fight isn’t about leadership and decisions, it’s about jealousy and loss, and so the likely outcome (which we’ll see in issue five) is yet more regrettable. But even with that tension this issue would be an average superhero punch-out if not for veteran X-artist Alan Davis, whose layouts and choreography convey the anger and effort behind each punch and throw. Davis’s regular inker Mark Farmer also deserves praise for his bold line work, as does colorist Jason Keith. This book just gets prettier and prettier as the story winds down.

Speaking of Wolverine, September brought an unexpected treat in the form of David Lapham and David Aja’s one-shot story, Wolverine: Debt of Death. For a Lapham story, it’s relatively tame (no dark humor, only one devastating personal failure) but no less compelling: Wolverine travels to Japan to investigate the murder of an old friend who’d requested his help in protecting witnesses, and ends up in the middle of a black market manhunt involving the friend’s family, giant robots, and S.H.I.E.L.D. It reads like Raymond Chandler, but with a mutant healing factor and WMDs—misleading conversations with authority figures, a not-so-innocent victim, even a downbeat ending that punishes everyone, hero and villain alike. Artist David Aja’s simple but detailed cartooning suits this kind of story—expressive, kinetic when it needs to be, and all very moody. Betty Breitweiser’s colors also contribute to the mood, juxtaposing the red and yellow heat of an explosion caused by giant robots with the deep blue and gray of a ninja’s assassination attempt. I’d happily read an on-going title by this time—with any luck Wolverine: Debt of Death is just a high-profile tryout piece, with more to come down the line.

Lapham also wrapped up the first volume of his and Kyle Baker’s DeadpoolMAX with issue twelve. Against all odds, this creative team has spun probably the most inventive and satisfying Deadpool story in a decade. In this issue, Deadpool’s zeal lets him see through the mechanics of the CIA’s plot to frame him and Bob, though they’re still too late to prevent a false-flag chemical attack in Cincinnati that kills thousands. Lapham has turned the character’s self-awareness and pop-culture-reference-spewing (traits that were interesting when Joe Casey introduced them in the late 90s, but were run into the ground by subsequent writers) into a pathology that has an impact on the story beyond comic relief. Deadpool’s insanity, when juxtaposed with the unreasonable, indefensible actions of his allegedly saner supporting cast, becomes Lapham’s means of revealing truth. The set-up for DeadpoolMAX 2 promises more of the same, and hopefully a good jumping-on point for hesitant new readers.

One-Shots

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #4 delivers all the action the previous three issues had kept in check, including the use of vampire-destroying sunlight lasers.

Two issues of Daredevil shipped this month, issue three penciled by Paolo Rivera and issue four penciled by Marcos Martin—both are exquisite to look at, particularly Martin’s two page, 30-panel gird following Daredevil as he sneaks into the lion cage of a zoo to retrieve a piece of evidence.

Butcher Baker, the Righteous Maker #6 is even more surreal than previous issues, and as much as I’m enjoying it, I’m beginning to wonder where this title is headed, and if it might soon be time to drop it and wait for the subsequent trade paperbacks.

Mark Waid must be reading this column because issue 22 of Incorruptible features plenty of Charlie Hustle, my favorite new character of 2011—and tossing a bone to the rest of the readership, it teases the long-awaited fight between Max Damage and The Plutonian. Meanwhile in Irredeemable, Waid reintroduces a lost character and puts yet another twist in the history of Scylla and Charybdis.

I enjoyed Secret Avengers #17 just slightly less than last month’s issue, but only because Kev Walker draws Steve Rogers like a retired boxer, and it distracted me from the rest of the issue.

Writers Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft continue to ramp up the tension in Severed #2, leaving much of the horror unseen except for a single full-page panel, impeccably rendered by artist Attila Futaki, depicting the gruesome aftermath of last month’s cliffhanger ending.

Looking Ahead to October

The real final issue of House of Mystery, more from the DC relaunch books I liked enough to keep reading, and Josh Fialkov’s The Last of the Greats.

[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.

Even though I know it’s returning in some form in 2012, I’ll still lament the absence of Grant Morrison’s Batman, Incorporated. I’ve followed the story he’s been building in various Bat-titles (including Batman and Robin) for five years now, and I’ve grown accustomed to monthly (or near-monthly) doses of energetic plotting and world-building. Issue eight is probably the weakest entry so far, however – the story is fine, but Scott Clark’s computer generated art is often clumsy, at worst it obscures the action. I appreciate the appeal of digital art for a story that takes place entirely in “Internet 3.0”, Bruce Wayne’s newest high-tech crime-fighting tactic, but I think regular series artist Chris Burnham could’ve done more with the concept, using just pencils and brushes. It’s a good thing, then, that Burnham will be back on the title next year.

Detective Comics #881

Detective Comics #881 brings both Scott Snyder’s year long James Gordon Jr. arc and the longest-running continuously published title in comics history (Action Comics has more issues because it went weekly at one point, but Detective was published first) to a close. I can’t imagine a conclusion more befitting that milestone – all the tension Snyder packed into the previous ten issues comes to a head as James Jr. confronts Barbara and reveals the extent of his psychosis. Artists Jock and Franceso Francavilla share the title, but Jock gets the majority of the action scenes while Francavilla handles the expository bits – appropriate enough, considering how well Francavilla builds tension and Jock releases it. Unfortunately this writer-artist team won’t carry over into the new DC, but Snyder is staying on the Bat-titles, poised for a long, satisfying run with the character.

Justice League of America #60 was easily the best of the month’s farewell issues, and probably the best issue of writer James Robinson’s run on the title. Robinson uses his last issue to tell the story of this League’s dissolution – a fitting parallel, but the meta-commentary doesn’t stop there. As the characters discuss their reasons for wanting to leave the League, they wonder aloud about legacy and memory, and what it means to be replaced. If that sounds a bit like a veteran writer wondering about his role at a big publisher that’s in the middle of significant change, it’s no coincidence. My favorite parts of the issue, though, are the recollections of epic battles that apparently took place in-between issues. It’s a clever bit of storytelling on Robinson’s part, and worthy end to a run that deserves a little more attention than it was given.

The Spirit #17

The Spirit #17 is officially the final issue of the title, but it’s been shutting down in stages since June. Issue fifteen was the last to feature series artist Moritat, who’s European-derived cartooning defined the title’s look, and issue sixteen was writer David Hine’s farewell, with guest art by John Paul Leon. Issue seventeen returns to the “Spirit: Black and White” mode, collecting the already-completed stories that were left on the shelf when DC dropped all the second features to afford the move to a $2.99 price point. Howard Chaykin and Brian Bolland team for a tabloid murder plot while Paul Levitz and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez tell a tragic winter tale, but Will Pfeifer and P. Craig Russell’s art museum robbery/history lesson is the real gem. We’ve known the Spirit was on the chopping block for a while so it’s no surprise to find it’s absent from the new DC. But if they want to hold on to the license DC will have to publish something Spirit related – let’s hope whatever creative team is tasked with once-more revitalizing the title gels even half as well as Hine and Moritat.

When T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents launched last Fall I had inkling it would quietly become one of the bleakest titles on the shelf – sure, the concept of superheroes who fight for good knowing their powers will eventually kill them is a bit grim on the face of it, but in a heroic, celebratory kind of way. But writer Nick Spencer took the book in a different direction, telling a slow (at times frustratingly so) story and holding every character accountable for the terrible things they’ve done in the name of security. The second arc, which wraps up with issue ten, plumbed those depths even further, tugging on a thread from the original series to find the grim places where it could possibly have led. We know that former Agent Dyna-Man’s relationship with villain Iron Maiden is doomed, but we’re compelled to watch it play out in gorgeous flashbacks, rendered by Mike Grell and Nick Dragotta, while weathering the fallout of their star-crossed romance in the present. It’s almost too much, but Spencer finds a perfect middle between irony and heartbreak on the final pages. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is one of my favorite new titles, so I’m glad to hear that it’s returning in November. I hope the new series finds a slightly faster pace, but doesn’t sacrifice any of the dark tone I’ve come to love.

Zatanna #16

In retrospect, I’m surprised I held onto Zatanna for so long. It started out promisingly enough – Paul Dini’s stories were light in tone but briskly plotted, and Stephane Roux’s pencils were predictablylush. But then fill-ins for both artist and writer started to hinder the larger story’s momentum, and the book became a series of single-issue stories that tended to hit the same notes again and again. I was ready to drop the book, but I knew two of my favorite creators – artist Cliff Chiang and writer Matthew Sturgess – had arcs or issues in the offing, so I stuck around. After they’d left, though, I kept buying out of habit. Fittingly, Zatanna ended with a one-shot story by Adam Beechen and Victor Ibañez that pits the titular heroine against a mischievous witch-boy, not even attempting to wrap-up any of the story threads had laid out across the first ten or so issues. I don’t feel slighted by the lack of resolution; rather, it just demonstrates how little DC seemed to care about the title. Luckily Zatanna will be showing up in some form in Peter Milligan’s Justice League Dark, but I doubt we’ll see a solo-series for the character any time soon.