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.
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.
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.
John Allison has spent most of the past twenty years chronicling an ever-proliferating series of strange events in and around the small British town of Tackleford, somewhere in darkest Yorkshire. More impressively, he’s done all of this in public, on the Internet, most days of the week, for free. And he’s done it in comics form.
First up was Bobbins
, which I haven’t made a serious study of yet, but was in the traditional newspaper strip-comic format and focused on the staff of Tackleford’s City Lights magazine, with perhaps some supernatural eruptions. After Allison closed that down around the turn of the millennium, he launched a new series with a somewhat overlapping cast of characters called Scary Go Round
, which itself ended in 2009. SGR was formatted like a comics page, which made it easier to collect in book form and (possibly) allowed Allison to write more complex stories and include more of his quirky humor and details in each update. It also was clearly fantasy: characters visited Hell, were turned into zombies, and battled giant monsters to save the world. (Though Allison’s offhand tone and character-based plotting turned all of those elements into something very different from what you’d expect.) That strip was entirely collected into eight volumes, though — in the way of the webcomic — it’s also still all available online, as are Allison’s other strips.
For the next round of stories, Allison switched format again, to a double-tier newspaper style, which gave him a similar number of panels per page to SGR but with a more compact feel. That strip was called Bad Machinery
, and it followed up the end of SGR to focus on two “teams” of tweens at the local school, who solve mysteries in competition with each other. Allison still includes supernatural elements, but they tend to be more subdued in Machinery than they were in SGR, making his stories better controlled and more focused on characters. He also clearly designed Machinery for eventual book publication, with long story arcs that each fit cleanly into a single book. (See my reviews of the three Machinery books to date: one
, two
, and three
.)
Allison has also made a number of related print comics in various formats over the years — including Expecting to Fly
, which appeared online first — and there’s a 2013-2015 run of Bobbins
, just to confuse things even more. Since Machinery in its turn ended last year, he produced a transitional story called “Space Is the Place
” (with part of the Machinery cast going to a space camp in Wales). And he’s also been writing a monthly comic called Giant Days — confusingly, this is also the title of a major SGR storyline, plus an earlier sidebar print project — for a different art team, which may or may not have a Tackleford connection. (I haven’t seen it yet, since it’s only in floppy form so far.)
So Tackleford is a place that Allison knows well, and has been telling stories about in a variety of ways for a long time. It’s his Yoknapatawpha County or Castle Rock — the core of a world that extends out to many places. With that said, though, Machinery feels more focused on Tackleford than SGR did — maybe because the main characters of Machinery were kids, and limited in their ability to go other places and do other things.
I’ve been a fan of Machinery for a while, but only recently started diving back into Allison’s archives. The first four SGR collections are currently unavailable to most readers in book form — I believe ebooks are still obtainable in the UK, but not elsewhere due to a stupid recent tax law in that backwards country — but books five through eight are still out there, most easily obtainable in the US from Topatco
. And so that’s how I got those books — Great Aches, Ahoy Hoy!, Peloton, and Recklessly Yours — and finally read a big wodge of SGR for myself.
What strikes me most about this slightly-less-formed version of Allison’s world is how consistent he’s been in his concerns: his stories have focused on smart, sarcastic women with a goal in mind — Shelley Winters as the exemplar for SGR, Charlotte Grote for Machinery, with plenty of others including Amy Chilton and Dark Esther — in a world of slightly slower, bemused men who end up along for the ride.
Unlike the Machinery books, each SGR volume collects a number of stories, adding up to about eleven months for each book. (More or less, to allow for full stories in each one.) Allison also includes notes on each storyline and some sketches and similar material at the end of each book, in the old way to entice freebie online readers to actually pay money for something.
These books, covering the strips from early 2006 through the end in late 2009, show serious growth in Allison’s art style, from a cleaner version of the look he began SGR with in 2002, drawn on a computer, through a hand-drawn middle period and a brief “hand-drawn, but much bigger originals” period before settling back onto the computer. (Where I think he’s stayed ever since.) The first story of Great Aches is in that early, flat-computer-color style, but everything else has a energetic hand-drawn look which well suites Allison’s frenetic characters and zigzag pacing.
The stories are a bit sillier and more anarchic than Machinery, and Allison’s notes make it clear that he spent this period making it up as he went along, diving into long stories without necessarily having a clear idea of how he’d get to the end. But even if the stories are somewhat shaggier and less formed, they’re still Allison stories, with unlikely turns of plot and deflation always waiting in the wings. And his dialogue was whip-smart from well before this period, full of witty asides and great cross-talk that always feels plausible enough while still not conforming to the way real people ever did or would talk. (That is a good thing: people talk badly almost all of the time. Fiction is to make things better and more interesting.)
So, in conclusion: John Allison is awesome. Buy his books, read his comics, enrich him with your dollars and pounds and more exotic currencies. Start here, start with Bad Machinery, go crazy and drop all the way back to the beginning of Bobbins in 1998 to get the full John Allison experience from the beginning. It’s all good.
Note: I’m not including the usual Amazon links this time, because that’s a very bad way to read and/or buy Allison’s older work. You can get the Bad Machinery books there if you want, but the others are available other places more easily. And, honestly, for a webcomic you should just read a bunch of it online first — surely we understand that by now?
These books each deserve their own posts, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to get it. But here’s the deal I have for them: if I write more than three solid paragraphs about any one of them — and that does happen; I’m never sure how long my fingers are going to keep moving — that book will get broken out and become its own post. (So it’s entirely possible no one but me will ever read this introductory paragraph; that’s happened before with planned round-ups.)
Autobio comics can be fun, but they can only go so far. Comics are such a time-consuming discipline, with so many hours spent hunched over a drawing board, that creators who rely on that mode either disappear up the navel of anatomizing their own process or misrepresent the few bits of their lives spent doing other things. Some creators, though, take “themselves” — or some version of their selves and lives — and throw that into something deeply unreal. And that can be much more satisfying.
This new graphic novel from New Zealander Horrocks — best known in artsy comics circles for his book Hicksville
, best known in the CBR world for writing Batgirl for a while — is not about “Dylan Horrocks.” As you can easily see from the title, the hero is named Sam Zabel. And the Big Two superheroine he writes is Lady Night, a mystic hero in the Dr. Fate mode. And the fantasy world he falls into is, I have to assume, not something that comes directly out of Horrocks’s experience.
Though that would be pretty cool, if it did.
Any story about a creator becomes a story about creation: about making stories and being blocked and finding inspiration and working despite obstacles and the wellsprings of story and all of that jazz. Horrocks does a good version of that story here, but you’re not likely to be greatly surprised at the twists of the story or the places it goes. Stories about stories are a minor genre these days, and this is a pretty good one. (You can still read a version of it
— I think it was somewhat updated and altered for book publication — on Horrock’s site.) And if telling this story re-energized Horrocks so he can tell more stories, and maybe even stories (unlike this and Hickville) that aren’t about how comics are special and cool and the greatest artform in the history of the universe while at the exact same time a pitiless industry that eats its young….well, that would also be pretty cool.
This is another fantasy story, with some elements in common with Sam Zabel — though not the connection to creative people or comics — but I probably shouldn’t emphasize that part, since those are the secrets that come out later in what’s mostly a mystery plot. And it also originally appeared for free online, though its URL leads to a blank page. (You can google it yourself, if you like: I see no reason to link to nothingness.)
So a young man goes to visit his grandfather in a nursing home and is shocked to learn the old man died a month before. A noir plot then start up: a photo of the grandfather with a beautiful young woman suggests depths, then disappears; a thuggish orderly is abusing patients and has darker secrets; the young man gets obsessed and starts neglecting his job and girlfriend. But there are also prophetic dreams, of trees and beaches, and the solution to this mystery will not be mundane.
Sin Titulo is a strong story, that turns naturally from realism into fantasy and uses its noir elements — not just plot; the layout and drawing style evoke classic strip comics and the dark alleys of old movies — with assurance and ability.
Every series falls into ruts; every comedy finds that its running jokes stop running quite so well. I’m not saying that’s definitely what’s happened to this manga series, since I could have had an off day while reading these, or maybe these stories just didn’t connect with me the way I hoped they would. But I am feeling that WataMote (the fan-name for the series, from the first two words of the Japanese title) is thinning out a bit, and not as exciting to me as it was before.
(Speaking of before, can I point you to my reviews of volumes 1 and 2
, 3
, 4
, and 5
?)
I don’t have much more to say about these volumes: I found parts of them funny, but more opaque. It may be because this clump of story got into more Japanese-specific moments that they didn’t connect with me, or maybe Tomoko’s schtik is wearing on me. Either way: this was still fun, and I’ll come back for another volume or two (which should see Tomoko to her graduation), but maybe not any more than that. It could be that the first few volumes are the best: that’s not uncommon. And those stories still exist, and are still as good as ever.
From worst to best of what I voluntarily paid money for.
Secret Wars #4 It’s not even that it’s a bad comic. It’s just that, well, at this point it’s become impossible to read this comic as a separate phenomenon from the overall realignment of Marvel comics (see part two of this post). Here we have what is in effect a brutal rejection of an entire line of thought in Marvel comics that has been going for several years – the Cyclops-as-Revolutionary angle. The comic is explicitly configured to allow Cyclops’s vision of fiery rebirth a moment in the sunlight and then to cut it down. Specifically in favor of a Reed vs Doom story. Although with the knowledge that both X-Men and Fantastic Four are being consciously downplayed within Marvel right now for broader corporate reasons, it’s tough to see that as a promising dualism either.
The real problem, though, is that I’ve always wanted to root for the Cyclops-as-Revolutionary angle. I’ve always thought that challenge to what superhero narratives are was worth exploring seriously and allowing the possibility of moral validity. Hickman turns away from it very, very hard here. I reject that, aesthetically. It’s not even that I think Cyclops is morally right. I think that’s a functionally meaningless question within the melodramatic metaphysics of a superhero universe. It’s that I think Cyclops is a vehicle for giving voice to perspectives superhero narratives don’t usually get to explore, and that Hickman gave him depressingly short shrift here.
Yes, there’s more issues and this may turn around. But this is a review of this specific issue. And given Secret Wars demands to be read as a meta-commentary on the state of Marvel Comics, I think what it’s saying this month is rank fucking bullshit.
Grant Morrison’s 18 Days #1 Honestly, I just think it’s unfair to ask the world to offer any sort of critical judgment of this, and I’m half-inclined to say that I’m going to buy it and not review it. It’s clearly not a major Grant Morrison project. And look, I don’t begrudge him taking the money and running, which he’s clearly done with this. But this book is a Kirby pastiche reworking of the Mahabharata with an artist who is not Jack Kirby. And a writer who is not Jack Kirby. It’s pretty. It’s competent. But what on Earth is one supposed to say of it? Morrison is in the backmatter comparing himself favorably to Lord of the Rings and Shakespeare. This issue doesn’t stand up to either. But equally, it seems vital to note that the problem is not what the book is – a western comic based on Hindi mythology. The problem is that this is just a Kirby pastiche of novel subject matter.
Ultimate End #3 There’s a shell game here, obviously. This book inherits its premise from other bits of Secret Wars. Not all of those bits are out yet. So the precise nature of Manhattan and of this mash-up of the 616 and Ultimate Universes is not yet revealed. I am interested in that question. The problem is, like Jason Aaron’s Thor run, it’s an intellectual problem, not a story.
Darth Vader #7 We switch to the good stuff for the week, I’m happy to say. Or, at least, what we might call the “good but didn’t quite work for me” stretch of reviews. This is capable, interesting, and still a Star Wars comic that I’m buying purely for the fact that I enjoy watching the writer work. In this case he doesn’t do anything that immediately grabs me, which is in no way a valid criticism.
Years of Future Past #2 A serviceable comic undermined by the fact that anything X-Men and Secret Wars related is aggressively ephemeral. That’s not a problem of course; the demand that comics “matter” is a very silly one based on a misunderstanding of what comics are. The problem, I think, is that Bennett is too restrained as a writer. She’s got loads of talent and style – the Colossus monologue page is a brilliant piece of style. She writes a brilliant Magneto. The final page reveal is a massive grin-inducer. But she has a post-apocalyptic team of mutants none of whom have to survive, and this book comes off as timid compared to its canvas.
Chew #50 I can tell that this is a well-structured issue. It’s obvious that it’s an interesting plot beat to throw at issue #50 of a sixty-issue series. It pays off a lot of stuff. It’s clearly a good comic. And I am entirely aware that my problem with this issue is quite literally my problem – one unique to me, and a failing on my part as a reader. That said, it builds to a final page reveal that depends on my being able to identify a character who has no dialogue in this issue. And… I can’t. I forget who the blonde woman in Chu’s arms is. I don’t remember her relationship with anyone. I’m sure she’s done stuff in the book and is important, but… nope. Total blank. So the whole thing just sort of… deflates for me. Like I said, my fault. My failing. Still didn’t work for me.
A-Force #2 It’s interesting to basically watch a book be demoed on a setting other than its actual one. Which is to say, I like A-Force, the comic about female Avengers led by She-Hulk. I like the takes on the major characters. I like the choices of major characters. But this still falls slightly short for me. I think it’s because, as an issue, it’s kind of vacant. As with Years of Future Past, Bennett (and she would appear to be lead on this issue) doesn’t really go for the sort of “and now for the big moment” revelry that the pop comics style she’s a best fit for demands. There’s no moment that feels like punching the air and saying “that’s what I spent my money for.” She’s good. I think she can deliver some top drawer comics. But she needs to work on that aspect of her game.
The Wicked and the Divine #12
And now we shift to the great stuff. And this is great. Gillen handles the shift away from McKelvie well. Kate Brown is a good transitional artist for this, maintaining the book’s basic visual grammar but introducing us to a spin on the premise. But this is a calm between the storms issue; Gillen is running out the clock, going down some side alleys and doing his worldbuilding. But it’s an obvious bit of non-misdirection. He’s flagging, in a variety of ways, that we’re eventually going to circle back to Laura and, by extension, Lucifer. I mean, if nothing else, gee, it’s funny how every god who’s died so far is an underworld god. I WONDER WHAT THE AFTERLIFE IS LIKE.
Which works. There’s a tension of an eventual reveal that infuses a side trip like “let’s pay attention to Cass’s old assistants for an issue” with a really compelling tension, especially as the larger “who’s going to figure out what Ananke is actually up to first” game plays out in the background. As serialize drama, the moving parts are exquisitely put together.
Equally, and again this comes down to “we’re judging issues here, not books,” Gillen makes a Sandman analogy in the backmatter that’s on point. This issue – maybe this arc, but certainly this issue – is one of those side trips like the dead boy detectives in Seasons of Mists or the entirety of World’s End – a conscious step away from the main story. And the truth is… well, that’s why Sandman works better in trade.
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #7 What can I say. Ryan North is funny. He has clever ideas. This book shows that off. There are many highlights, and I will not spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it. Oh, OK. Ratatoskr
.
Uber #26 Sheer bravado. Uber‘s version of “Blackwater” or “The Watchers on the Walls,” with an entire issue spent on a single battle. With twenty-five issues of buildup that have screamed loudly that this is not a book that offers a rosy view of war or history, the idea of a major battle testing a sympathetic character’s technical capabilities is genuinely terrifying. Uber has taught us to fear, very much, for our main characters. And this issue trades on that, while maintaining an exquisite balance of personal character focus and sweeping historical scope. Small moments and big ones juxtapose. It’s awful. It’s ugly. It’s intriguing. It’s brilliant. Fucking hell, this book.
Part Two: The Marvel Previews
From best to worst, with a clear marker of where the stuff I’ll buy ends.
Karnak – Well, it’ll only be six issues, but this is delightfully batshit.
Ms. Marvel – “Crushed it” indeed.
Spider-Man – Love me some Miles Morales.
A-Force – Wilson is an autobuy. Love the cast.
Ultimates – Galactus on a team book by Al Ewing, yes please. Also Miss America. All the yes.
Invincible Iron Man – Bendis on Iron Man sounds a safe bet.
All-New All Different Avengers – Great cast, Waid’s a reasonably secure bet as a writer.
Uncanny Avengers – Have liked enough of what I’ve seen of Duggan to try this, but Deadpool is worrisome.
New Avengers – Buying entirely because Ewing is an autobuy for at least a first issue, but nothing that grabs me here as such. Squirrel Girl’s nice.
Guardians of the Galaxy – Bendis is, ultimately, still an autobuy, although this has hardly been my favorite book of his.
Contest of Champions – Seems very silly, but I’ll always give an Ewing book a shot, as I said, and very silly could be fun.
Spider-Gwen – The abrupt pause in the series after #5 definitely screwed up momentum on this for me, not least because it wasn’t a great issue, so this could end up being a jumping off point for me eventually, but it’s not yet.
Angela: Asgard’s Assassin – As the above reviews suggest, Bennett isn’t quite catching for me, but I kind of want to give her more chance, and I am already invested in the plot here. This is the lowest-ranked book to be a definite buy for #1.
Spider-Woman – The premise grabs me, and I have a vague intention of giving Hopeless a try, as I don’t think I gave him a fair shake previously, so this is the best bet of where that might happen.
Howard the Duck – Have had enough recommendations for this that I mean to check out the first run. If that’s good, will buy this too.
Sam Wilson, Captain America – Nick Spencer can be good, and I like the idea of a Sam/Steve schism. Give me more premise and we’ll see.
Daredevil – Soule is hit and miss, but he does do good lawyers, and the Daredevil/Gambit pair is intriguing.
Web Warriors – Maybe, as I like some of the characters, but I’m pointedly trying to keep my pulls down, and this seems exactly the sort of book I can decide against.
The Totally Awesome Hulk – I don’t know, who is the Hulk? I tend not to like questions like that, but the name charms me.
Venom: Spaceknight – OK, those are not two words I expected to see together, and that raises an eyebrow at least.
Uncanny Inhumans – Probably not, as I haven’t fallen in love with any of Soule’s previous Inhumans work, but I’m not saying no.
All-New Wolverine – OK, this doesn’t grab me inherently, but mostly because I don’t know who Taylor is. I like the art and the premise. The highest-ranked “maybe” for me – everything below this is a 0% chance of my buying it barring new information.
Amazing Spider-Man – Haven’t loved Slott’s stuff post-Superior Spider-Man, and think this will be my exit from Spider-Man.
Captain Marvel – I haven’t gotten to Agent Carter episode two yet, and it’s been months, so I don’t think this team will win me back.
All-New X-Men – Of the three X-Men books, this is the most promising, not least as I do mean to give Hopeless a try on something, as I said. But with the X-Men line on the whole looking droppable right now, this falls below the plausibility point.
Extraordinary X-Men – Lemire and Ramos are both “not dealbreaker” sorts of creators, so this just sort of leaves me cold, but I do like the feel for an X-Men book.
Uncanny X-Men – Interesting premise, but I have no faith in either Bunn or Marvel tackling this sort of sinister X-book.
Nova – Gutted to see that this does not feature the awesome Nova family from Infinity Gauntlet.
Doctor Strange – I don’t think I like Jason Aaron’s work.
The Mighty Thor – Will be dropping this, as I just don’t dig the angle.
Hawkeye – I like the Clint vs Kate premise, but I’ve not been following post-Fraction Hawkeye, and this doesn’t look set to grab me.
Spider-Man 2099 – Glad people who like this have a book.
Star-Lord – Haven’t felt a hole in my life without a Star-Lord book before, don’t imagine I’ll start now.
Old Man Logan – Not the Wolverine book I suspect I want.
Ant-Man – Just sort of the purest distillation of “meh” for me.
Silk – The character hasn’t grabbed me yet, and the villainy tone of the solicit leaves me cold.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – I don’t even like the television series.
Drax – Can’t see this working for me.
Vision – Don’t know the writer, no obvious hook in the premise, not a character that grabs me
Illuminati – this looks utterly not like my thing.
Deadpool – I don’t like Deadpool.
Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Cute premise, but this seems the embodiment of “cool idea but not a book I would enjoy.” Low place mainly due to the appalling resolution of the art, I suspect.
Hello all; as of this week, my comics reviews are being crossposted to ComicMix, so I suppose I should tack a paragraph introducing myself onto the start. I’m Phil Sandifer, a blogger covering various forms of pop culture and media with my own idiosyncratic long-form analysis. I’m responsible for TARDIS Eruditorum, my now-concluded history of Doctor Who, and the still-ongoing The Last War in Albion, a sprawling history of the most important magical war of the last century, the rivalry between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.
Everything reviewed is something I willingly paid my own money for, whether wisely or foolishly, organized from my least favorite to my favorite of the week.
Weirdworld #1
Snagged because it seemed to be taking the Secret Wars premise to an interesting extreme. But while this seems a functional mash-up of Frazetta-esque pulp action and superheroes, nothing in the first issue seems to rise above the basic “nobody’s done a big Frazetta homage lately” appeal, and the whole thing ends up leaving me a bit cold. I’m sure this scratches someone’s itch, but it doesn’t scratch any itches of mine, or at least, doesn’t provide $3.99 worth of scratch.
Gotham Academy #7
Two months away from this book have, as I feared they might, not really added much to its luster for me. I still like the aesthetic a lot conceptually, but nothing has forged any attachment to the actual characters for me. It’s something I find myself hoping other people are enjoying a lot, because it’s a book I want to exist in the world, but not something whose magic is quite firing for me.
Silver Surfer #12
This feels like a book out of another era; one where Secret Wars #5 was still coming out in July, for instance, at least based on the ads. This isn’t a book that has ever been inclined towards the subtle exploration of a premise, and indeed the content of this one is telegraphed ages in advance. The big moment, the Surfer and Dawn snogging, is compelling in its own right, but one of those things where Secret Wars kind of cannibalizes its impact; one assumes the Slott/Allred Surfer is not going to be surviving into All-New All-Different Marvel, which means that Dawn Greenwood is probably a fascinating implication about to be thrown aside in a quasi-reboot. Which leaves this feeling very disposable.
Spider-Gwen #5
The alternate universe nature of this book is tough; it’s never as strong when it’s fleshing out the AU. The appeal is Gwen Stacy as Spider-Woman, and the book falters when it’s outside of her head. Which it is for a lot of this issue. I should love the sort of WicDiv “superpowered pop star punchdown” feel of this, and I do, but there’s too much of familiar Marvel for it to stand on its own feet and too much difference from the usual concepts of “Matt Murdock” and “Felicia Hardy” for their associations to quite carry it through, which is leaving the central appeal of this book lacking for me.
Nameless #4
I admit to some severe disappointment with this. I’d very much hoped that Morrison’s engagement with the vibrant and increasingly culturally influential nihilist philosophies of people like Thomas Ligotti would push him to new things. Instead we just sort of have Final Crisis and The Filth mashed up and played back at the wrong speed.
Ultimate End #2
As a part of Secret Wars, this is developing an interesting enough mystery about Manhattan and what happened to the 616 and Ultimate universes. As a comic designed to serve as a satisfying end to the fifteen year project that was the Ultimate Universe, the fact that there are so many 616 characters running around feels to me like it’s getting in the way. The scene of 616-Spidey visiting Ultimate Aunt May and Gwen Stacy, in particular, felt like bizarrely squandered potential.
Saga #29 I admit, there are aspects of this book’s… extremity that I do not entirely grasp the point of. Autofelatio cave monster is a prime example. This all moved along nicely, and I think there were some good plot beats, but I have to admit, this issue did nothing for my concern that the book has vanished up its own ass.
1602: Witch Hunter Angela #1 I appreciate the degree to which this is following up from the Angela; Asgard’s Assassin series in terms of plot, feeling like it’s nicely setting up an actual arc that’s going to continue before and after Secret Wars. And Angela killing King James (who is secretly Wolverine) is basically pure brilliance.
Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #9 I have little doubt my affection for these Last Days stories is going to drop precipitously as they all end up hitting the same basic conceptual beats, but I’m glad Ewing got the first crack at a finale in this vein, because he doesn’t bother holding anything back, instead just banging the “heroes fighting to the end because that’s what heroes do” drum as unambiguously and as optimistically as it can be banged.
Injection #2 Warren Ellis weirdness. It features Ellis’s occasionally irksome tick of just throwing in a massive multi-page fight scene that establishes little beyond “this dude is an an ultra badass,” but while these scenes are less interesting than most of what Ellis does, Ellis still does them better than almost anyone else. And the remainder of this book is good fun.
Crossed +100 #5
This was just fantastic. I love the man for whom the Crossed outbreak was just business as normal, especially done as a sort of Rorschach parody. I love the invocation of the original title of The Stars My Destination. One more issue of this, and the sense of dread and terror is fantastic. Sci-fi zombies with all the zombie horror in the background. It’s brilliant; so wonderful to have Moore writing two titles right now, even if it’s only going to be true for another month.
As you can imagine, we bought a lot of stuff at WonderCon.And if you know anything about tween/teen YouTube viewing habits, you know hauls (shopping show & tells) are key.So, this week we bring you Part 1 of our WCA Haul! We’ll show you which geeky chic items we’ve added to our collection and which “vintage” comics caught our eye. We also review Joie Brown’s Heavenly Kibble Guardian Corgi issues 1 & 2 and Crystal Cadets by Anne Toole and Katie O’Neill.
Stay tuned for Part 2 (maybe even part 3 — we took home a lot of comics) for more reviews.
Mark your calendars. This is a date that will live in history. I just had a great time at a Reed Pop show.
The occasion was the first Special Edition NYC, held last weekend at New York City’s Javitz Center. Now, the Javitz Center is one of my least favorite places, noisy at the best of times, somehow both isolated from the city and yet frequently jammed with people. I especially haven’t enjoyed the Reed shows there because they get far more people than the space was designed to serve, resulting in lines for the bathrooms that can take over an hour. At those times, I am grateful that I can no longer be pregnant.
Special Edition was different from NYCC (which, for the record, stands for New York Comic-Con) in that it was only about comics. No movies. No television. No games. Just comics. It’s a much smaller show, taking up just the northernmost part of the center. The panels, of course, were all the way at the southernmost part of the center, a distance of about four city blocks, or 1/5 of a mile.
My first impression on walking in was that it was so pleasant. I arrived on Saturday a bit after noon (doors opened at 10 AM), and there were groups of people walking in, but in a relaxed manner, because they weren’t being jammed together against their will. The security people checking badges were smiling and helpful, directing us down the corridor to the main room.
Of course, when I got to the main room, the first thing I saw was a row of ATMs. Because this is a ReedPop show, I thought to myself.
And then I walked onto the floor. The front half of the room had dealers and a few publishers (the largest, I think, being Valiant). The back half of the room was Artists Alley.
Artists Alley is my favorite part of the show. As someone who loves comics, its exciting for me to meet the people who create them. This show had a good mix of new (to me) people and respected veterans. The longest line I saw was for Jerry Ordway.
On Saturday, I didn’t get to any panels, although I had hoped to see this one. I commend Reed on hosting a panel on this topic, which is a tad more sophisticated than the usual “Women in Comics” cliches.
One reason I didn’t get to the panels on Saturday (besides my personal inertia) is that the panel rooms were not well marked. Despite having well-trained and helpful staff at the main room, it was difficult to find anyone to give directions to the panel rooms.
My favorite part was seeing Howard Chaykin, a man on whom I’ve had a schoolgirl crush for at least 35 years. The only other person in the business at whom I gush in the same adolescent manner is Kyle Baker who, alas, was not at the show. Howard was kind enough to put up with my fawning, and even recommended some books I might like to read.
It seemed to me that there was a smaller percentage of cosplayers at this show, and those that were there were mostly on-theme (in that they were dressed as comic book characters, not Doctor Who or Walking Dead). I also had a sense that there were fewer people behaving like creeps, not only to cosplayers but also to women and girls at the show. If I were to speculate (and I’m about to), I would guess that the assholes who attend the bigger shows are drawn to the movies, the TV shows, etc. and not to comics. Comics require the ability to read, and people who read, especially fiction, must occasionally consider the possibility that other people have feelings.
Or maybe the show wasn’t on their radar. This was the only hype I saw in the mainstream press.
I look forward to seeing how Special Edition New York develops. It is a great reminder of the fun and friendliness of comic books.
Written by Monty Nero. Art by Salvador Larroca, Juan Vlasco and Sonia Oback
It’s fitting to me that this week Mike Gold pontificated on how mainstream comics are either targeting either the kiddies or the adulties. OK, technically, he was ranting – rightfully so – that the industry at large is seemingly devoid of wonder. Well, Mr. Gold, Monty Nero got at least half right. Amazing X-Men Annual #1 could only be targeting that sect of fans that exist between youngsters and the snarky old. Here’s a book that sets out to cover the smallest ground possible, tell a quick and potent adventure, and wrap up on a deep character moment.
Of course, what we get is a by the book, seen-it-before plot-by-numbers that leaves one wondering what purpose the book serves in the greater scheme of things. Then again, that may just be my inner-old-guy being a d-bag. So, I’m going to make every attempt now to smile my way through what might have once been an angry review. Chins up kiddos!
Nero’s script revolves around Ororo Monroe, also known as Storm (and several dozen other names, as we learn mid-battle cry!). We find out that during her adolescence, a great sandstorm was ravaging a village. Ororo made way to save T’Challa – the Black Panther – but could do nothing else. Flash forward to the present, where a world-weary survivor of that devastation has recently gained mutant (or mystic?) powers. Meruda, now an angry god of the sand, lays waste to his homeland, whilst stealing away a distant cousin of Storm. Cue the opening titles!
Soon thereafter, the X-men arrive on scene, and what follows is a ton of fighting. For what it’s worth, the battle here is at least meaningful, in so much that our villain has just cause to want to hurt the mohawked veteran of Charles Xavier’s school. And while she faces Meruda, Wolverine, Firestorm, Iceman, and the Beast battle an ancient god – resurrected, and holding the soul of Storm’s brethren in check. All in all, if it were a cartoon, there’s be plenty of punching to enjoy.
Artistically speaking, Salvador Larocca lends his formidable pencils to the cause. As I’d enjoyed much of his run previously on Iron Man, many of the same strengths continue on the page. His meaty figures are always placed dutifully in kinetic panels that keep the eye moving through his pages. Emotions are clear, and easily read. Backgrounds, whether they be ransacked deserts of Africa or high tech cabin shots of the latest X-Jet, are beautifully rendered. Inks and colors only add to the final product. I’m always apt to point out the Photoshoppery in today’s modern comics, but here Larocca and company are doing it right. Special effects like the knockouts on Nightcrawler’s ‘BAMFs’, or the almost painterly treatments on Meruda’s sand-constructs just look cool. Where others are quick to use filters and such to mask issues, Salvador does it right – using the tools of the digital art bin to elevate his work to the quasi-future sci-fi space to add to visual excitement of the comic.
If you’re looking to be sated with pleasantry, well, stop here. Amazing X-Men Annual #1 is good clean honest fun. It’s a one-and-done adventure that is worth a gander perhaps for the pretty art alone. And for fans of Storm, well, you’re getting her in rare form here. So, consider this issue a sunny day, clear of rain by a country mile!
Still with me? Good. I can’t take it any longer. Nero commits a sin of the industry that nearly pushed me out as a fan not that long ago. His script and plot are so duh-duh simple that I can’t look past it. Annuals in the modern era are usually used for one of very few purposes: to re-establish a baseline for the book, to give a young and upcoming creator a spotlight that doesn’t require a multi-issue arc, or to set the tone for the next arc to come. Here, we get the second. And with it, nails on a chalkboard to me. Nero to his credit, has had several great successes professionally. Here he dips his toe into the X-waters, but does so tepidly. I can’t help but lay a finger of blame less on him than Mike Marts, the editor.
When given essentially a blank slate and a simple goal (pick an X-Man and write an issue that celebrates them as a character), the possibilities are near endless. Nero picks Storm, one of the most powerful, nuanced, and meaty characters on the team – whomever is on the team this week, I suppose. His choice to use a bit of her past to create conflict is even better; it gives credence to the battle as I’d said. But his choice to deliver the story as a literal straight shot is what grinds my gears. When a plot is as simple as this, it’s a veritable invitation to a debutant ball for a writer! Nero could have played with time, with flashback, with sequencing, or even with the psuedo-science of Meruda and Storm’s comparable power sets.
But he delivers none of it. We literally go from the standard cold-open to the X-men reading about the cold-open to them traveling to Africa to fighting to resolution. I’m even apt to note when a book chooses to do things simply with the beats, it can be made up for with style. Nero though, learns the hard way the Achilles heel of all X-books: more members mean less opportunities.
Ultimately, Amazing X-Men Annual #1 is a book only a tweener could enjoy: simple in plot, heavy in action. But as Mike Gold would note: it’s devoid of wonder. Too engrained in familial angst, monologuing, and excuses for quips or violence. Normally I’d take the opportunity to lay waste to the book with a grand trail of snark behind me, perhaps declaring that this book represents all that’s wrong with modern comics (or some such line). But there’s no need: This book is simply a missed opportunity to be great. And that alone is enough shame for one week.
Part One: Comics
Hello all; as of this week, my comics reviews are being crossposted to 
