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

Spotlight

Detective Comics #878

The title blurb on the cover of Detective Comics #878 reads “The Villainy of Tiger Shark,” but the issue is really about villainy of another sort—a less ostentatious form of evil that wears a face you wouldn’t necessarily pick out of a crowd. Batman’s world is unique in that it contains both theatrical criminals with outlandish costumes and realistic street crime. Some writers seem to choose one or the other to focus on (Bill Finger and Alan Grant the former, Frank Miller the latter) while others (Grant Morrison and Jeph Loeb) consider both sides, exploring the boundaries between the ordinary and the fantastic. Scott Snyder, whose run on Detective is coming to a close, is among that last group, though he has dispensed with classic Bat-villains like the Joker, Two-Face, or the Penguin, and instead created his own murderous eccentrics to juxtapose against the more mundane, but far more terrifying, “is he or isn’t he” evil of Commissioner Gordon’s estranged son, James. Jr.

Detective #878 opens with Dick Grayson’s Batman suspended from chains over a water tank that contains a monstrous killer whale, which takes big Shamu-like leaps at him, jaws open. Tiger Shark, the story’s nominal villain, is a pirate and drug/weapons trafficker who wears a red scarf over his eyes and a wardrobe derived entirely of ocean-dwelling animals. He speaks exclusively through his attendant thugs, any of whom he’s willing to kill on a whim. There’s some grandiose talk about Tiger Shark’s lineage and whether he may be part of an Illuminati-type ancient society, but all that is abandoned as soon as Batman escapes the trap. The action is gratifying and immaculately rendered by series penciller Jock, and ends on a nice moment of Dick clinging to a buoy, and narrating exactly what kind of physical trials he had to endure just to get there. The hero endures, as always.

Then Snyder articulates the end of the action sequence by jumping suddenly to Dick keeping his promise to Gordon by meeting with James Jr. It’s a satisfying move for anyone who’s been reading the title and knows this has been building for a few months. Beyond that, it also keys Dick back into the plot that seemed to float away unresolved in the previous sequence, and it sets up a Dashiell Hammett-style confrontation with Sonia Branch, with Dick solving the mystery while recognizing that he’d been played. That much layering and interconnectivity alone would be worthy of praise, but Snyder does triple duty, using the final two pages to introduce some incredibly gruesome violence, and evidence that Batman has been used as a pawn yet again. I won’t step on the reveal, but it’s definitely a turning point for this arc.

Snyder’s story is unfolding just like a year long story should – steadily, without dragging any plot points out unnecessarily, and without giving away too much up front. The James Jr. plot has been building since the first issue of the arc, but it’s always been interlaced with the other mysteries Batman is solving, with time given over (particularly issue 875) to explore the overarching plot in greater depth. Every plot point feeds into the others, and all are driving towards a conclusion that’s unknowable by design. With most superhero comics we can predict at least part of the ultimate outcome—good will win out over evil, even if sacrifices are made along the way. But Detective Comics #878 promises little outside of a grim, painful reckoning. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.

A quick note: Due to the complications and demands of May, I didn't have time to dig into and dissect my pull list in the usual fashion, which is unfortunate because some excellent books (Nonplayer #1, Detective Comics #876, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #6) came out in April. But, I did write a Spotlight on my favorite book from April. Full May column follows.]

Spotlight: April

Dark Horse Presents #1

In previous months I’ve written about my love of anthology comics and short-form storytelling in general—I like the quick pace and the inclination toward bittersweet endings, I like meeting and leaving a character all in one sitting, and I especially like the juxtaposition of different voices. Even beyond my idiosyncracies, it’s clear that anthologies allow us to broaden our reading horizons by giving us a comfortable place to try out new material—if a writer or artist or story doesn’t suit you, it’s over in eight pages and you’ll be onto something with greater potential.

But appreciating anthology comics is more than just a personal preference, it’s a part of the medium’s history. Anthologies have been a staple of comic storytelling from the very beginning—Golden and Silver Age titles like Detective Comics, Action  Comics, Amazing Fantasy and several others featured four or five different stories, often positioning the superheroic adventures of characters like Batman and Superman against more grounded detective stories, or mystical/supernatural adventures. And even as the market changed and those books became solo vehicles for the most popular characters there always seemed room, particularly in the underground comix movement, for anthology storytelling.

But that seemed to change in the past decade, as reader preferences shifted towards decompressed storytelling and publishers began catering to the trade paperback market, telling stories over five or six issues that could then be collected and sold in bookstores, theoretically reaching a wider audience. There are still holdouts, like 2000 AD in the UK, Heavy Metal, and Image Comics’ Popgun collections, and one-time experiments like DC’s Wednesday Comics, but those collections can be expensive, or hard to find in certain markets. What’s needed is an affordable, regular anthology title that is widely available. Thus, the return of Dark Horse Presents. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Last time on “The State of My Pull List”: Comics in March were so good it was almost insulting, so we split the Pull List in half; Nick Spencer’s Jimmy Olsen was hilarious; Xombi #1 was spooky and dark and also hilarious; Batman, Inc. #4 wasn’t so hilarious, but it was three excellent stories in one.

And now, the heart-stopping conclusion of The State of My Pull List: Deluxe Edition!

Solid Reads

Detective Comics #875

Elsewhere in the Bat-world, Detective Comics #875 expands the story of Commissioner Gordon and his estranged, maybe-reformed son James Jr., filling in a key bit of the back story that was hinted at in their conversation in issue #874. In the present day, Gordon tracks down a man he’s deduced is the Peter Pan killer, an open case from years back that continues to haunt him. Intercut with that story is a flashback to the time of the original case, and an unsettling incident involving the disappearance of young Barbara Gordon’s friend at a lake house. Writer Scott Snyder pitches the suspense just right, so that the mystery and unexpected twists left me holding my breath during some scenes, but without resorting to extraordinary plot contrivances to keep the story going. When the teenage girl disappears, the scenes become more desperate; but the real scares are reserved for when Gordon confronts James Jr. in his bedroom, trying not to believe the worst about his own son. The tension and anxiety is made all the more real by artist Francesco Francavilla, who employs vertiginous layouts and a eerie yellow-red color scheme for the flashbacks, and a more muted blue-grey for the manhunt in the present. Some plot points are resolved here, but like all good serialized fiction this issue further complicates the story, and leaves us as frustrated and uncertain as Gordon, but in a good way.

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

Usually it isn’t too difficult for me to pick this column’s spotlight book. I read a healthy stack of books every month, and while I enjoy a lot of them, one always stands above the rest.

But March… March was different. Just about every week presented at least one brand-new title that sounded too intriguing to pass up, and most of those books delivered. On top of that, several of the titles I’d already started delivered high quality stories that explored and, in some cases, expanded the medium. At the end of each week’s reading, I picked what I assumed would be the spotlight book, and the next week, I’d pick another one.

Faced with this rhetorical Gordian Knot, I choose to take up Alexander’s sword and slice clear through it—if four books deserve the spotlight treatment, then so be it. And because this was such a hefty month, we’ve split the column into two posts: the first focuses on the four Spotlight books, the second (coming soon) covers March’s Solid Reads and One-Shots. Dear reader, welcome to The State of My Pull List: Deluxe Edition!

Spotlight 1

Jimmy Olsen #1

Nick Spencer and R.B. Silva’s “Jimmy Olsen’s Big Week” story was heavily hyped when it launched as a second feature in Action Comics last summer. I wasn’t reading the title at the time (I’m still not, but plan to pick up Paul Cornell’s run in trade in the near future) but I downloaded the free preview through the Comixology app and was impressed. I trusted that DC would get around to collecting the second features in some way, put it on my future wish list, and moved on.

Then DC took a side in the price wars and dropped all their second features, cutting every issue down to twenty pages, and lowering their prices line-wide to $2.99. Some of those features, like my beloved “Spirit Black & White”, dissolved into nothingness. But a few had a high enough profile that DC marked them for future publication as oversized one-shots (that, at $5.99, are probably cheaper than the eventual trade I was hoping for.) “Jimmy Olsen’s Big Week” was spared, thanks almost entirely to Nick Spencer’s status as one of the busiest and most critically acclaimed creators working.

Much of that claim is due to his versatility. On T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Spencer showcases his gift for knotty, convoluted plotting and crafting rich characters; Infinite Vacation showcases his “weird science” proclivities. “Jimmy Olsen’s Big Week” (on the cover it’s just Jimmy Olsen), is Nick Spencer at his comedic best. Which isn’t to say that his other books don’t have their light moments, but Jimmy Olsen feels like a comic book version of What’s Up, Doc, all screwball comedy mixed with alien invasions, fifth-dimensional princesses, and a warm romantic subplot. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Spotlight

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #5

I don’t know if he’s ever come out and said it publicly, but conventional knowledge has it that Warren Ellis hates superheroes. The closest I have to an actual admission comes from a blurb for David Yurkovich’s bent take on the genre, Less Than Heroes: “if there have to be super-hero comics, then I want them to be David Yurkovich’s…”  The criticism is more apparent in his mainstream comics work, which often depicts superheroes as amoral, fascistic, or ineffectual. So maybe it’s not that he hates superheroes, but rather that he hates the absolute power they represent. That would explain why he continues to take superhero work with Marvel and DC—he wants comic readers to question the structures that surround them, and is using the very comics they read to make sure the lesson is heard, if not understood.

There’s no shortage of didacticism in Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #5, the final issue of Ellis and artist Kaare Andrews miniseries. As the streamlined Astonishing X-team (Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Armor, and Emma Frost) faces off against heavily armed cyborgs in pursuit of a dimension-hopping traveler whose radiation trail resulted in a spate of devastating mutant births in the African village of Karere, Ellis grapples with what it means for a group of heroes to wade unsanctioned into the middle of another country’s affairs. Not surprisingly, Ellis sides against the X-Men, offering an ending that critiques not only interventionist politics, but also the gnat-like attention span of the West when it comes to humanitarian crises. The final pages are devastating, as the country’s president explains the cost of being a leader to the team.

None of the commentary would be as effective without Kaare Andrews’ gorgeous art. His characters look like caricatures come to life; either hulking and impossibly muscular, or comically tiny, but always rendered in exquisite detail. This issue’s highlight is an extended sequence where Emma conducts telepathic surgery on the last remaining cyborg, culminating in a gleefully grisly splash page.

Somewhat confusingly, Marvel also released Astonishing X-Men #36 this month, beginning a new arc unrelated to Xenogenesis, written by Daniel Way and drawn by Jason Pearson. I can’t quite figure out why Ellis and Andrews were put on a mini instead of the main Astonishing title, particularly when the two only overlapped one month (and not even the same week, either), but hey, that’s comics. In any case, Way and Pearson’s issue is fun, but slight. It promises lots of giant monsters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but after the insight and intrigue of Xenogenesis I’m left wanting more than a big pile-on fight. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Spotlight

The Spirit #10

I started following The Spirit in 2006, when Darwyn Cooke wrote and drew twelve issues of the title for DC, who had recently acquired the rights to the character. I’d known about Will Eisner’sbest-known creation for probably twelve or thirteen years thanks to a special “Who’s Who” edition of Heroes Illustrated. It included superhero mainstays like Superman, Batman, and the X-men, but also the stars of independent books, like Jaime Hernandez’s Maggie and Hopey, Jim Valentino’s normalman, and Will Eisner’s The Spirit. The idea of an undead (but not zombified) crime fighter in the Dick Tracy mold appealed to me, but accessing the stories seemed impossible—there were 50 years worth of Spirit stories, but I was still too young to buy expensive reprint collections, and my local library didn’t carry comics at the time.

Cooke’s take on the character electrified me, but I lost interest when he left the book. The stories didn’t seem as funny or nuanced, even with talent like Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones at the helm. When the title was canceled I shrugged and assumed I’d have to start looking into reprints to get my Spirit fix—thankfully, DC took a second shot at the character in 2010, relaunching the book under the “First Wave” banner with Mark Schultz writing and Moritat penciling. David Hine took over writing on issue four, and the series has been consistently excellent since then. Both Schultz and Hine, like Cooke before them, avoided ossifying the title by being over-reverent to Eisner but put their own spin on the wit, visual and verbal, of the original.

The Spirit #10 capitalizes on that wit, riffing on both Crime and Punishment and, more subtly, Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s 100 Bullets, in a one-and-done story that barely even features the title character. A thief named Roscoe Kalashnikov (get it?) finds an untraceable gun and uses it to murder the old fence he despises. Moral certainty quickly turns into doubt and paranoia, and Roscoe begins to see the Spirit everywhere, from the shadows to a crossword puzzle. Mortiat’s pencils heighten the terror, making melodrama out of Roscoe’s every grimace and violent revenge fantasy. And when the Spirit finally shows up in a diner where Roscoe is hiding the art softens, juxtaposing the almost mundane reality of the character with the power of his legend. In that way it’s almost an inversion of the typical Batman story, in which the rumors and myths and exaggerations are fulfilled by the hero’s presence. Here, the Spirit is merely a man (albeit a dead one) seemingly unaware of how broadly his shadow is cast over the city.

Also: January marks the beginning of DC’s $2.99 price initiative, and thus the discontinuation of all back-up features, including “The Spirit Black & White”. While I appreciate the dollar drop in price, I’ll miss the short, exquisitely rendered tales that filled out the back end of each issue. Hopefully DC will see fit to collect them in a separate volume, or perhaps even publish a one-shot anthology featuring new stories in the “Black and White” mold. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Spotlight

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

The comic book cover fake-out—where the action or mystery revelation on the cover never actually takes place in the book’s pages—is about as old as the medium itself, but the disparity is particularly noteworthy when it comes to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2. The gorgeous Gary Frank cover (itself an homage to creator Wally Wood’s cover for issue eight of the original series) depicts the team battling big robots and uniformed goons while a hooded skull watches—but not only does the issue feature neither the team fighting together nor any big robots, the most action it offers is the speedster character, Lightning, disabling the enemy base’s defenses in less than a second. Some might accuse writer Nick Spencer of extreme decompression, taking several issues to do what other writers might cover in a single page, but the character work in this issue raises the stakes for the eventual action and proves that this is more than just a team-up-and-fight book.

A few more details of the espionage/secret war plot are doled out, but the centerpiece of the issue is our introduction to Lightning, a.k.a Henry Cosegi, a former Olympic runner who accepts T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s offer to become the superfast hero after he’s disgraced by allegations of steroid use (allegations likely fabricated by T.H.U.N.D.E.R. itself). Cosegi’s story is drawn by guest artist ChrisCross, whose work has always been expressive and rich, but looks particularly good here. When Lightning goes into action, we see the consequences of his bargain—the powers allow him to run with purpose once more, but his running complicates the time stream and so he is confronted by successive visions of his own death, occurring at younger and younger ages. It’s a clever take on a well-worn power, but more than that it hits a chord of sadness that isn’t often explored in the genre. By the time this first arc wraps up the plot might not have progressed too much, but we’ll know these characters intimately, and feel the pain of their sacrifices more clearly.

Fans of the book should also pick up this month’s DC Comics Presents T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents 100-Page Spectacular, which reprints issues one, two, and seven of the original Tower Comics series. Last month I mentioned that Spencer seemed to owe a debt to The Wire given its focus on bureaucracy and ideas about work-a-day superheroics, but I was wrong—all of that is embedded in the title’s history. The original issues are excitedly dry, like Jack Kirby writing an episode of “Dragnet.” There’s plenty of adventure and lots of characters, but we don’t really get to know them before the narration whisks us away to another meeting of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. council, or some office politics. Reading this gave me a better perspective on what Spencer is up to in the new series; he’s not simply modernizing an old-fashioned story, but rather building on ideas that were ahead of their time. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Spotlight:

Strange Tales II #2

Gathering top-level writers and artists for an anthology title doesn’t always guarantee positive results. DC’s 2009 experiment Wednesday Comics was always interesting, but proved that even veteran creators sometimes struggle in an unfamiliar format. It’s doubly satisfying, then, that the all-star lineup behind Marvel’s Strange Tales II #2 delivers nine excellent stories, some funny and some touching, all evidence of a strong connection to the history of these characters.

This issue kicks off with Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, playing to their respective strengths with off-beat retro tales. Gilbert’s story features an odd Silver Age team-up of Iron Man and Toro, the original Human Torch’s kid sidekick, while Jaime (who also drew this month’s cover) delivers a beach movie pastiche that combines his love of clever, confident female characters, rock and roll, and sight gags. Jeffrey Brown refigures the psychodrama of the Claremont/Smith-era X-men as contemporary roommate politics, and Tony Millionaire’s trademark surreal humor sees the Mighty Thor as a pickled herring salesman who faces off against Mud-O and Can-Man in an amusement park. My favorite story of the issue, however, is Farel Dalrymple’s take on the first encounter between Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer, which features a page that should resonate with anyone (like me) who pored over How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way as a kid.

It’s no coincidence that the only sour note, Sheldon Vella’s incoherent heavy metal action short, is also the only story that isn’t embedded in a specific corner of Marvel history (as far as I can tell). Collections like this succeed when the creators have some genuine affection for the material, and aren’t just slumming it in the mainstream. …
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[At the end of each month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Read the explanation of this column's name here. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

Spotlight:

from "Batman and Robin"

Superhero mysteries post-Watchmen (or maybe more specifically post-Long Halloween) tend to drag the central question of the plot over a dozen or so issues, doling out a clue or two every issue to string the reader along until the big reveal. These stories are fun, but the structure often feels artificial. By contrast, every issue in Grant Morrison’s five-year, multi-title Bat epic reveals scads of details about its central mystery without sacrificing tension. If anything, it’s the desire to put all of that information into context that propels the reader into each subsequent issue, and makes both Batman and Robin and Batman: the Return of Bruce Wayne the best comics on the rack every month.

This month’s issues (#15 and #5 respectively) offer the penultimate moments of their stories, each contributing further details to the story of Bruce Wayne’s “death” and time-travel trek back to the present, Dick Grayson’s battle against Dr. Hurt, the Joker, and the Bat-god Barbatos.Ryan Sook’s pencils for RoBW are gorgeous, but Frazer Irving’s muted colors and shadows really capture the midnight-in-the-graveyard quality of Batman and Robin. And the two-page spread where Robin single-handedly takes on the 99 Fiends nearly surpasses Frank Quitely’s work on this title in sheer adrenaline and fluidity.

Quality Reads:

from "Batman: Hidden Treasures"

Elsewhere in the Bat-world, Batman: Hidden Treasures presents a stand-alone Batman story written by Ron Marz and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson in the late 90s, but never released. Why it was shelved is unclear – the story is slight but compelling, and Wrightson and inker Kevin Nowlan’s interiors are detailed but clear, and suitably gruesome. I imagine the market for an illustrated prose story about Batman investigating sewer murders is small, but I’d rather have this book available than mouldering in DC’s archives. Paul Cornell and Jimmy Broxton’s Knight and Squire #1 features the British Batman and Robin analogues in a done-in-one story that’s funny, but doesn’t do much beyond introduce an entire cosmology of British superheroes and villains. Clever as those characters are (including Jarvis Poker, the British Joker) I hope the story kicks in next issue. Knight and Squire have too much potential to sit in the background of their own mini-series. …
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[As a prelude to his monthly comic book column, "The State of My Pull List", Aaron explores his comic reading habits, and the pleasures of a pull list.  Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]

For a dedicated comics reader, the pull list is a kind of contract with your preferred retailer, who agrees to hold issues of the books you read each month if you agree to buy them. This ensures that you don’t miss a book you’re interested in or dedicated to, and it helps retailers streamline their ordering process by keeping track of how many customers read which books. It’s a cozy system, and generally keeps everyone pretty happy.

Personally, I haven’t kept a pull list in years. Not that I don’t read enough comics to warrant a list—I read about fifteen to eighteen books a month, which is roughly 4% of the industry’s monthly output (not accounting for all the underground and self-published material out there). I’m sure my local store (the excellent Comicopia in Boston, MA) would cheerfully accommodate my near constant dropping and adding of titles, and picking up a stack of comics at the end of every month would certainly keep me budget-conscious. There are plenty of reasons to recommend this relatively simple decision.

But I like scanning the new arrival shelves for my favorite books every Wednesday. I like balancing a light week with oddities or one-shots I might not otherwise have picked up. I even like discovering that one of my regular titles has sold out, and the subsequent searching other stores in the area to find it. I feel like a hunter-gatherer, facing a raw landscape every week, never entirely sure what I’ll bring home to my hungry family (who, in this metaphor, is… also me). I prefer to be active and engaged, like those proud people stalking the landscape, using their keen senses to track their prey. Unlike them, I experience very little risk of death involved in buying comics, but that doesn’t diminish the satisfaction I feel walking to the subway with that robust brown bag tucked under my arm.

For me, then, a pull list is less a prediction of what I hope to buy any given week, but rather a record of what I did end up buying. And so this column will be a monthly review of that record, coming to terms with what I read, what I liked and disliked, trends worth noting, and other ephemera. With any luck it will convince you to pick up a stellar book like Mark Waid’s Irredeemable or Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin, but if nothing else I hope it will give you 4% of insight into versatile, creative rich medium.

[Read the first full issue of "The State of My Pull List" here.]