Author: Philip Sandifer

This is a hugely important piece about the comics industry. You should read it.

And now, from worst to best of what I bought. Much of it by Kieron Gillen.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #5

A comic that presents itself as an argument for the merits of a married Peter Parker with an awesome superhero daughter, which is fine save for the tacit overlooking of the fact that it all gets reset at the end, and so it’s an argument for something it flatly refuses to give.

Star Wars: Shattered Empire #1

Bought because of Rucka and because I figure I’ll see The Force Awakens, so this sounds neat too. Tied very tightly to the end of Return of the Jedi, however, which I haven’t seen in probably twenty years, so that kind of lost me, though through no real fault of its own.

A-Force #4

I suspect I’m going to be much more excited about this book when it’s not in Secret Wars continuity anymore, but right now my Secret Wars fatigue is crushing this. And I’m not sure I parse the cliffhanger; the state of the Wall and the Deadlands is clearly in different places in different books right now, and I think several of the tie-ins are ahead of the main series.

Darth Vader #9

Quite like the interplay between Vader and Thanoth, which kept this a fun, entertaining read for most of it. Found the entire section with the twins a bit of a slog. Still, fun book. I bet if I cut some of the crap from my pulls I’d enjoy things like this more.

1602 Witch Hunter Angela #3

A decided uptick for this book – indeed, I think I liked Bennett’s main story more than Gillen’s substory. And the final page is a hoot. I don’t think the post-Secret Wars Angela title is currently in my pulls, but this issue makes me reconsider that a bit.

Siege #3

The weakest issue of this so far, plagued with an excessive quantity of hope and optimism, and the continually idiosyncratic art of Filipe Andrade. Also, what’s with the house ad gatefold in the middle of Juan Jose Ryp’s double page spread, Marvel? Ah well. I’m sure it will all turn dark and tragic for #4.

Mercury Heat #3

This picks up quite a bit – the rhythm of the investigation is finally forming, as is a bit more of a sense of character. I quite like Luiza asking for a tape of the bad guy getting her spine ripped out; that’s a wonderfully interesting and macabre character beat. And it’s a good cliffhanger too. Still looking a bit like a minor work for Gillen, but fun.

Injection #5

The bulk of the pieces here are finally on the board. So, basically a sort of reverse Planetary then. I won’t lie, I’m a mite disappointed by the series on the whole. It’s smart and clever, but more than just about anything I’ve seen Ellis do recently, it feels like Ellis by numbers; like the most obvious thing that Ellis could be doing at this point. Mind you, the moment when the nature of the captions becomes clear is fucking brilliant.

Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #2

An issue that’s basically a “what’s actually going on” mystery in both of its plots, which is an approach that’s just not to my taste in some key ways. But lovely McKelvie art, and I’m sure it’ll all fit together nicely later because it’s Phonogram. One small issue, though: Placebo is fucking awesome, Kieron, so shut the hell up.

Ms. Marvel #18

Fantastic Captain Marvel stuff in this one, and some equally fantastic character bits. I love the interactions between Kamala and her brother, and the final page is an expected beat but a lovely one all the same; a plot beat that basically always works. This is basically as much fun as comics get to be.

Bitch Planet #5

Man, I’m so glad this comic exists. It’s so very much written onto my Hugo ballot in pen right now, purely because it’s so wonderfully designed to piss off all of the right people. If the Weird Kitties had a mascot, I’d want it to be a punk-as-fuck cat with a non-compliant tattoo on her ass. Anyway, brilliant and cruel. Really hope it gets its scheduling hiccups squared away in the future, but really loving it.

The Wicked and the Divine #14

A formalist experiment long on fascinating plot revelations that samples Fraction and Zdarsky. There’s probably more I should want out of life than this, but there isn’t, so oh well. There goes my “the feature god dies every issue” theory. But again, so much delicious plot it’s hard to complain. And the Woden/Cassandra exchange was pure gold.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

You know the drill; worst to best of what I bought.

But first, something I didn’t buy, because it’s free.

Electricomics

Out today for free for iPad, this is the digital comics platform Leah Moore and company have been working on, featuring, among other things, Alan Moore and Coleen Doran’s “Big Nemo.” Which is unsurprisingly the highlight of the package here, with a series of clever uses of the virtual page and its mutability that evoke the playful wonder of McCay’s work in a new medium. It feels like it ends on the title page of what should have been a much longer comic, though. The Garth Ennis strip is also neat, but the other two feel more interested in their own whizz-bang gimmicks than in actually being interesting, and the app is still a bit sluggish, resulting in frustrating reading experiences for both of them. Still, well worth the price, and they’re apparently still smoothing it out, so hopefully it’ll end up as a more functional package in a few weeks. Still hard to see this having much in the way of legs as a platform, but a fun little oddity of the world.

As for paid stuff…

18 Days #3

The art takes a turn towards abject mediocrity, the plot seems to wander off completely from anything it had been doing, and Grant Morrison’s not even in the credits as doing anything but “creating” a series that’s just a retelling of classical Hindu mythology. Wretched.

Daredevil #18

Fine, in the sense that there’s little wrong with it as such, and it’s nice that Waid was given leave to avoid there only being Secret Wars at the end of his run, but the truth of the matter is that he stayed on this book at least a year too long, and probably closer to two. It’s never been bad, but the energy had long since drained, and the denouement, despite bringing Kingpin in, did very little to change that. And the Shroud’s plot seems totally unresolved.

Doctor Who: Four Doctors #4

This lost rather a lot of pace for me, with an ending that’s much more “what’s happening” than “what’s going to happen” and the limitations of Neil Edwards’s art getting in the way of the story sometimes. (His Tennant and Smith can be very indistinguishable in the middle distance.) There are fun bits, but this event is starting to look like it’s going to underwhelm.

Silver Surfer #14

There’s really not such a thing as a Michael Allred comic that’s not fun to look at, but this has to be the most one note comic I’ve seen in a while; it starts with a tone, carries that same tone to the end of the comic, and then, well, ends, generally without doing much. Strange and lazy-feeling, frankly.

Miracleman #1

The best part of this comic is the edit to Neil Gaiman’s script to refer to “The Original Writer.” So nice to see the project still haunted by its past. In any case, following one of the biggest pieces of rank bullshit in recent comics memory when Marvel fucked up the printing in an iconic scene of their overpriced reprint comic and then didn’t issue replacements, thus screwing collectors who were already, shall we say, impatient with paying $5 for less than twenty pages of story, I’m back on the horse with this godforsaken money sink for the simple reason that I’ve never actually read the Gaiman material, so I’m curious. It’s… not Gaiman’s best work; the psychedelia in the lead-up feels strained, like he’s trying too hard to hit a style that’s just not natural for him. But it’s still a fascinating piece of work, and a pleasure to read a bit of 1990 Gaiman that most people haven’t. Man, though, Buckingham has improved as an artist in the past quarter century.

Thors #3

A fun Thor/Loki interrogation scene occupies the bulk of the issue, which moves along nicely as a result, but overall the degree to which Secret Wars is a millstone around Marvel’s neck right now is a real problem. It’s not this book’s fault at all, but the sour taste of Marvel in effect charging $4 extra for the series because it’s so late really does spoil things, as does a pretty flat ending. Still, the interrogation scene is fun.

Lazarus #19

Some good plot twists here, although for an arc with this high stakes, this is really feeling kind of… sedate. I like this issue – leaving Forever dead for most of it is a nice way to tell the story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. So I’m hopeful the end of the arc will spark a bit. But for the amount that’s happening, I’m finding myself strangely detached from this book.

The Dying and the Dead #3

In some ways, given how badly the schedule here is borked, a flashback issue that traces alternate history instead of following up on the apparent main characters is wise. It’s apparently going to be a while before #4, so something off in its own little corner is a good idea. Still, hope this book gets its act together, because while this is a good issue, it’s not a sustainable approach.

Providence #4

It’s frankly not a good week when what’s a fairly middling issue of Providence is the only credible candidate for the top slot, but that’s how it is. This is a somewhat understated issue, with some interesting implications for the larger plot, but not a lot happening here. One also gets the sense that we’re setting up a more general shift in the comic – having plowed gamely through “Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Dunwich Horror,” the only real remaining top tier Lovecraft story is “Call of Cthulhu.” With eight issues left, then, we’re clearly going to have to veer towards some more obscure stuff, which suggests a change in tone and pace. So this feels a bit transitional. And yet it’s still denser, smarter, and longer on reread value than anything else in the pile, and the only thing that feels like it offers anything like value for its cover price.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

Secret Wars to get an extra issue and continue into December, two months after the Marvel relaunch. DC reportedly cutting page rates to creators, eyeing price increases, and cutting back on innovation in favor of the New 52 house style. What a great time to be a comics fan, eh?

From worst to best of what I bought, which wasn’t much this week.

Old Man Logan #4

Actually a really solid comic; the Logan/She-Hulk scenes are great. Except that they’re a great She-Hulk story, and the comic is a Wolverine comic, so instead of staying with the interesting character we just watch Wolverine hurled to another location. It turns out a character whose only motivation is grudgingly surviving in a story with no visible overall plot is kind of unsatisfying. Who knew? Apparently not Bendis.

Batgirl #43

A perfectly good issue of Batgirl that doesn’t necessarily do much to impress so much as faithfully deliver what people enjoying this book are paying for.

Doctor Who: Four Doctors #3

Some distinctly dodgy plot logic on why the Macguffin affects individual regenerations of the Doctor with specificity, and an outright unrecognizable River Song in her two panel silent cameo, but for the most part the strongest issue yet, with a reasonably fun twist on the backside. Not entirely convinced by Cornell’s Twelfth Doctor, but his Eleventh is strong and his Tenth is probably the best take on the character after Davies’s. This remains fun and frothy.

Where Monsters Dwell #4

This has had a really interesting drift as Karl becomes increasingly less funny and more depraved. Ennis in his sharpest comedic mode, basically. Not a classic of Ennis’s oeuvre, but very much fun. Also, a well handled trans character, especially given that the only issue made out of it is the fact that Karl’s too stupid to realize it.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

Happy to say that my comics have made it to the correct shop, and then out of the shop and to my home, where I have read them and ranked them from worst to best of what I was foolish enough to pay for. (Though strangely, Loki didn’t make it home, and I don’t think I saw it in the shops. Will follow up and review it next week one way or another.)

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #4

A great issue #2.

Guardians of Knowhere #3

For most of this, it runs along without any of Bendis’s most infuriating writing tics. The Angela/Gamora confrontation is excellent character work with added punching. The plot moves off of Yotat and towards things recognizable as characters we care about. Mike Deodato draws gorgeous lightning. It’s a solid comic. And then it does a cliffhanger that amounts to “a person appears.” No explanation of this person. Maybe she is identifiable, but she’s not identifiable in a way that I can identify, and I’m nearing a quarter-century of reading Marvel comics. It’s not a cliffhanger in any useful sense; there’s no excitement. There’s a question, sure, namely “who is that,” but there’s no reason for me to be invested in the answer to it.

Doctor Who: Four Doctors #2

It’s a bit longer on action sequences than plot, in a way that’s not entirely satisfying, but that’s probably going to come out in the wash given that it’s a weekly event. All the same, this is mostly reapers chasing people as opposed to actually moving forward. But there’s enough charming and funny bits to make it an enjoyable trip.

Secret Wars: Secret Love #1

A fun anthology one-shot. The Daredevil story’s a bit off the boil for me, but the others are varying shades of delightful, with the Ms. Marvel/Ghost Rider story probably being the highlight from any serious perspective, and the Squirrel Girl/Thor story being the highlight from any moral one. Nice way to get some oddball talent into Marvel, and it’s always nice to see an odd genre like the romance comic get a revival.

Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders #2

The only possible complaint to have about this book is that it deserved more than two issues to tell its story. Still, it’s an enormously compelling case for Faiza Hussain as a character. Really, she needs an ongoing role in the Marvel Universe. Preferably as Captain Britain.

Trees #12

Admittedly, I found time to reread #1-11 since the last issue came out, so I’m actually in the position to understand this. That said, this seems to continue the beautiful clarity of this second arc; the stripped down setting to two stories does this book favors, and this is flat out a better run than the first arc was. Here it kicks into gear, with some real and gripping tension, especially with the cliffhanger. Ellis remains one of the few writers to consistently turn out comics worth their cover price.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

Doctor Who: Four Doctors #1

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

From worst to best of what I bought, although I should probably buy fewer comics.

Guardians of Knowhere #2

Bendis’s run on Guardians has been a touch hit and miss for me, and that’s translating poorly to the Secret Warsified Guardians. The crux of the problem here is that this book is about the nature/identity of Yotat, a new character, and his relationship to Knowhere, the Celestial head acting as Battleworld’s moon. The answer appears to be that he’s a Peter Quill alternate, but I couldn’t articulate a reason I’m supposed to care. It’s the sort of sloppy book that includes numerous mentions of a character called Mantis, and even dialogue addressed towards Mantis, but that by the end of I couldn’t tell you who Mantis is. She (I think) appears on a couple of panels but gets no facetime, and is I think killed at the end? Maybe?

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #3

I think I’m just kinda bored and done with Slott on Spider-Man.

Ultimate End #4

Apparently the Ultimate Universe has one issue until it’s over. I assume the premise of this book will be clear by then. This issue does not turn out to include a barely surviving Miles Morales atop a pile of dead heroes. Or, in fact, a pile of dead heroes. Or, in fact, Miles, except in one panel. Although he’s apparently important, for reasons that might be explained along with the premise of this book. There’s even a real chance that it will be a satisfying issue when all is said and done. But this series is a hot mess.

Blackcross #5

Ellis has really been fond of backloading his series recently, establishing the premise late in the books. Charitably, this means they read better in trade, but in this case the premise just feels like Ellis-by-numbers for this particular period in his career – a horror version of what he did in Supreme: Blue Rose without any of the conceptual grandeur that made that book’s half-revealing tone sing. Here’s the big explanation, next issue is the big fight, and the previous four issues were… the big tease? I dunno. Charitably, a minor work in Ellis’s career.

Darth Vader #8

Fun; Aphra has some great bits, Vader’s in an interesting bind, and I’m still buying a Star Wars comic for no reason other than enjoying watching the way the writer’s mind works, which is a silly reason to buy a comic, but then, at the end of the day spending $3.99 for most comics is silly.

The Wicked & The Divine #13

Man, this is a tough one to review, because it’s a well-executed and very on-point comic about real issues, and any criticism of the book thus feels like a criticism of doing good work about those issues. It’s a skilled done-in-one. But… I dunno. Ultimately, I’ve followed the story of online abuse and particularly harassment of women pretty closely for a few years now, and a well-done but ultimately straightforward story about it doesn’t do a ton for me. I have no criticisms of this comic and nothing but respect for it. It’s much more of a classic for the ages than any of the three silly Marvel books I’m about to put ahead of it. But I had its number before I got to the staples.

Ms. Marvel #17

I appreciate how this series is just going to September and then relaunching calmly and clearly with many of its plots intact. It does the Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel team-up well and with good character work. “For a while I just kind of felt weird and gross. Now I feel weird and awesome!” is one of the best lines in ages. It’s a teen superhero comic and working in all the moral platitudes that implies, but it delivers them with a big grin and an unapologetic love for them, and, perhaps more interestingly, a sense of perspective about them. The that would have been really awkward for both of us” gag at the start is indicative of the book. Good stuff.

Infinity Gauntlet #3

There’s an interesting sense of dread hanging over this book, which is a good tone for the mayfly iterations that Secret Wars tie-ins are trading on. But perhaps more to the point, this book is doing what a Secret Wars tie-in has to do to succeed, which is to make it feel like the highlights reel of a fantastic five year run on a premise. I love the Nova family. I love the way in which things like Groot are revealed within the story. It’s the best take on Marvel’s cosmic characters in years.

Siege #2

Nextwave as a tragedy indeed. Gillen, like Wilson and Weaver/Duggan, cracks the code on how to do Secret Wars with its tagline: “to waste their lives saving people who just don’t care? It’s the only thing they’ve ever wanted.” Perfect. The mayfly nature of the characters is baked solidly into the premise, and it becomes an opportunity for Gillen to do all his Marvel riffs like there’s no tomorrow, since there isn’t. And it’s absolutely crammed with easter eggs for sad obsessives who have actually read all of Gillen’s Marvel comics. Followed by a grim pun of an ending that somehow nobody’s done since Alan Moore came up with the character in the 80s. Gillen’s throwing a glorious Marvel party, and it’s ALL ON FUCKING FIRE.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

From worst to best of what I bought. Which, erm, wasn’t much.

Old Man Logan #3

This is increasingly just becoming a case of “old Wolverine wanders plotlessly through a variety of Battleworld realms,” which… is actually a genuinely awful premise for a comic, and I’m not sure why Marvel has decided to waste such talented creators on it. Within the confines of this there are some good moments; the scene with Boom Boom is absolutely lovely. But the overall package is astonishingly pointless.

Uncanny X-Men #35

A fun little issue that would have been quite pleasant had this denouement come at the pace Bendis wrote it for, but that is infuriating wheel-spinning at the pace this is actually playing out. I believe we’re three months now til the next issue of this? Stupid. In any case, a charming Goldballs-centric issue, and I continue to like Bendis’s take on the X-Men, not least because I’m seemingly dropping the line in All-New All-Different Marvel.

Loki: Agent of Asgard #16

This ends up salvaging the week, with one of the most Norse-feeling takes on Norse mythology that Marvel has done. I’m fascinated by the way in which Loki, over the course of this run, has been reconstituted so many times that they’re only sort of a singular character anymore, instead becoming, quite literally, a narrative force. With apocalypses all around, and Secret Wars really just being used as an excuse for one, the honing in towards a definitive statement on What Loki Is makes for genuinely interesting reading – I’m eager to see how this resolves next issue, which is more than I can say for a lot of Marvel right now, where I’m increasingly more interested in what’s next than what’s actually going on now.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

As always, from worst to best of what I voluntarily paid money for. Also, if you’re the sort who only swings by for these, you should know that book two of my epic history of British comics, The Last War in Albion, kicks off on Friday. Book Two is on Watchmen, and should be a fun time. Do drop by. I’ll have a bit of an intro to it/recap of Book One up tomorrow as well.

Years of Future Past #3

At no point during the course of reading this issue could I have articulated what the point of its existence was. I am writing this mere minutes after finishing it, and I am already forgetting it.

Silver Surfer #13

I know this book is a Doctor Who homage, but there’s a thin line between homage and rip-off, and “let’s rewrite The Big Bang only as a Jack Kirby pastiche” is on the wrong side. Fun, but tough to feel good about.

Guardians of Knowhere #1

Thus far, Guardians of the Galaxy only without Star Lord and as an overly black (literally) book drawn by Mike Deodato is, thus far, not an electrifying premise, although as usual Bendis makes the ebb and flow of fuck all happening entertaining.

Hawkeye #22

It’ll be perfectly fine shoved at the back of the fourth and obviously weakest Hawkeye collection, like “Return of the Good Gumbo” at the end of the shitty sci-fi volume of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, but not actually as good as that.

Crossed: Badlands #80

An inevitable and effective ending with all the happiness you’d expect, but ultimately the Homo Tortor arc feels like a missed opportunity that fizzled instead of exploding.

Mercury Heat #1

Good stuff, but it’s firmly the second-best take on classic 80s British comics of the week, and so it’s got to go here in the rankings. Basically, good premise, but there’s enough heavy lifting to do in terms of explaining the rather baroque hard-SF mechanic that the book doesn’t get a ton of opportunity to actually do anything. But it’s no worse a start than True Detective Season Two.

Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders #1

A Muslim woman becomes Captain Britain, then gets plunged into a Judge Dredd pastiche. Yes, of course my reasons for liking this comic are in part political, but screw it. The multiversal conception of Captain Britain and Judge Dredd were always political, as readers of this site well know. This is a beautiful homage to British comics in a fun romp of a package. It’s delightful that Secret Wars allows such silliness.

Trees #11

It’s clear that Trees is not a book about momentum. And I won’t lie, I think Ellis’s experimentation with things you should have trade-waited for is a bit frustrating at times. But I don’t care; that last panel transition is fucking beautiful, and as far as I’m concerned, worth eleven issues of buildup. Now I just need to clear the time to reread those eleven issues so I understand it.

Where Monsters Dwell #3

Well that certainly escalated. Which is quite right; without abandoning the mad excess of his premise, Ennis finds an entirely new angle on it here, and the results are outright hilarious.

Siege #1

It’s the most inside-baseball thing imaginable; a structural rewrite of S.W.O.R.D., Gillen’s debut Marvel book, which nobody read. It mashes up bits of Young Avengers and Journey into Mystery. It has giant zombie ants with writing on their DNA. Gillen wasn’t lying with “Nextwave as a tragedy,” especially with an absolutely majestic final act that’s at once obvious and brilliant. Everything you hope for from Gillen throwing a Marvel Universe farewell party, basically.

Crossed +100 #6

My God, this was a bleak piece of pessimistic brutality. And, of course, brilliant. The fact that Avatar is continuing it feels almost as dumb as Before Watchmen, but on its own merits, as a self-contained story, it’s a ruthless skewering of an entire rhetoric of broken utopianism – an uncompromising viking funeral for the entire classic history of science fiction. Just in time for the Hugos.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

First of all, these reviews are now being cross-posted to ComicMix, which means I should possibly introduce myself for the people who just clicked on a link there and found themselves here. So, hi everyone. I’m Phil Sandifer, this is my blog. It’s a geek media blog, running a history of British comics called The Last War in Albion on Fridays, a rotating feature (currently a Game of Thrones blog, switching over to an occultism-tinged take on the Super Nintendo in a few weeks) on Mondays, and occasional other features, currently including weekly reviews of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It’s also got the archives of TARDIS Eruditorum, a sprawling history of Doctor Who. And, obviously, on Wednesday, new comics reviews.

We keep the lights on here via a Patreon , and if you enjoy the site, I ask that you consider kicking a dollar a week my way.

Reviews tend not to involve giving a letter or number grade to things, but instead ranking them relative to each other. So these, as with every week, are ordered from the worst to the best, with the caveat that I paid my own money for all of them, whether out of an expectation of quality or out of the bleak pathology that is comics fandom. Except that’s a lie this week, which we’ll get to. But first:

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #2

The problem – which was present in the first issue, but largely overshadowed by the sheer energy of the thing, is that this book gives every sign of trying to have it both ways. It’s unabashedly aimed at the still-vocal chunk of comics fandom who appreciated that our version (and yes, I just gave away my allegiances) of Spider-Man was married; who thought that was an interesting way to set the comics version of a pop culture icon apart from all the others. But it’s also seeming to set up a critique of the structure, being based on how having a family necessitates reconceptualizing Peter as the sort of person who says, “that’s what daddies do. We do anything to keep our families safe. ANYTHING.” And who then has nightmares about the awful things he’s done already. As I said, in the first issue of this things moved fast enough that you could avoid dwelling on this contradiction. Here… they don’t, resulting in the unsatisfying spectacle of a comic that’s primarily about the tension of whether or not it’s going to be an insult to the readers it’s marketed to.

Archie #1

I got an advance review copy of this, and it was not purchased. I might have picked it up, especially given that this was a light week, but we’ll never truly know.

In any case, it’s pretty good, but unable to escape the gravity of its own futility. Which is to say that, quite aside from any ethical issues about the relationship between Archie Comics, the direct market, and crowdfunding, let’s not forget the fact that the abandoned Kickstarter for these Archie books was never going to meet goal. Which is to say that, culturally, we do not give a shit about Archie right now. He’s an archetypal example of the popular culture icon famous for being famous. Nobody actually likes Archie.

So here we have Mark Waid and Fiona Staples writing a comic that’s trying desperately to change that. It’s a good team. Staples is a great artist, as Saga proves, and she does well here. It’s going to be very depressing when her three issues are done and whoever replaces her suddenly whitewashes Riverdale. Waid writes a competent high school romance. But… at the end of the day, you’re still stuck with a property defined by the fact that it established many of the cliches of its genre many, many decades ago, as opposed to by the fact that anyone has come up with anything interesting to say about it today.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #14

I admit, I’ve not been thrilled with the arc on this book since ServeYouInc was defeated. The lack of a villain leaves it feeling a bit directionless. Here the plot meanders through some sort of inchoate cosmic crisis, with the emotional heft coming from the idea of the TARDIS getting mad and abandoning the Doctor, deeming him “unworthy.”

Sadly, one does not expect Matt Smith to regenerate into a woman in response to being deemed unworthy. The final page cliffhanger is interesting, but one doubts the licensing will let Titan actually explore its implications in a meaningful way, so the result is a sort of reversion to the mean for Doctor Who comics, as opposed to the sort of thing that has in the past made this an extraordinary run of them.

Saga #30

I actually followed what happened in this issue, which is a pleasant change from my usual “wait, who are all these people that aren’t Marko, Alana, and their daughter again” reaction to this comic. The ends of arcs tend to do that with Saga for me – it gets flabby in the middle sections, but any time the narration kicks up I tend to be pretty happy with it. So basically, a rare case of Vaughn not writing for the trade.

Injection #3

It’s increasingly clear that Injection is one of those periodic Warren Ellis comics that amount to him creating a narrative container for dumping his current cultural and intellectual obsessions into. These are often a bit narratively messy, and this is no exception; Ellis is being willfully leisurely introducing his cast (this is the first point there’s any sort of roll call, such that I now want to dig up #1 and #2 with an eye towards actually knowing who these people are), and most of them are just standard Ellis characters anyway. And, of course, Ellis has now released most of the underlying ideas here as an ebook collection of his recent lectures.

Doesn’t matter. Warren Ellis in a philosophical mood is just one of those things that always works in comics. And this is a prime example.

Providence #2

The methodical slow burn of this continues, with the supernatural finally making its first decisive interjection (and note the way the panel layout shifts as Robert goes underground). This is very much a late career Alan Moore masterpiece, long on allusion and philosophical digression, requiring an hour or so of Googling to fully appreciate, and with a lengthy text piece to boot. Which is good. I mean, this is actually a comic one will plausibly get its cover price ($4.99) worth of value from, which is more than you can say for anything else on the list this week. If nothing else, it’s a comic where Lovecraftian horror is a metaphor for being gay and also for horrifying and impossible caverns beneath the earth full of unfathomable monsters.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.