This Week’s Haul

It’s the last comics haul of 2010! And… it’s the last entry in this series I’m going to do. I’ve been writing this column almost-weekly for over four years, and my enthusiasm for it has flagged over the past year. I’ve decided it’s time to turn my attention to other things and not worry about getting in a column each week. I hope those of you who have followed my ramblings have enjoyed them. I do plan to write about comics from time to time, but probably in a different format.

  • Action Comics #896, by Paul Cornell & Pete Woods (DC)
  • Green Lantern #61, by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy (DC)
  • Justice Society of America #46, by Marc Guggenheim & Scott Kolins (DC)
  • Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #4 of 5, by Warren Ellis & Kaare Andrews (Marvel)
  • Captain America #613, by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice, Stefano Gaudiano & Rick Magyar (Marvel)
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. #5, by Jonathan Hickman & Dustin Weaver (Marvel)
  • Echo #27, by Terry Moore (Abstract)
  • Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead #1 of 2, by Mike Mignola & Scott Hampton (Dark Horse)
  • The Royal Historian of Oz #3, by Tommy Kovac & Andy Hirsch (SLG)
I’ve been reviewing each issue of Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis mainly because Kaare Andrews’ covers have been so awful – comically so, really. But this cover is not bad, even if it is another take on the old “warrior with babe hanging onto his leg” image.

Warren Ellis’ story is gelling into a new reworking of Alan Moore’s great Captain Britain storyline involving Jim Jaspers, a mutant who can bend reality, the Furies, unbeatable killing machines, and Warpies, mutant-like babies with destructive powers. Other than tying into his invention of universe-hopping Ghost Boxes, Ellis hasn’t really done much very new with the pieces; an army of Furies is even more unbeatable than the original one was, and it’s kind of amazing that none of the X-Men have been outright killed as yet. And it’s hard to see exactly how the story’s going to wrap up in just one more issues.

Ellis’ Astonishing X-Men run has been fairly interesting, and it feels like it’s gradually building towards something, but it’s been very frustrating that it’s been so plagued by delays. I don’t know if it’s Ellis’ scripts running behind, or the musical chairs among the artists, or that all of the artists have fallen behind, or if editorial is just asleep at the switch (or doesn’t care), but this run really needed to stay on a decent schedule to work. Long delays are a good recipe for fan apathy, and it’s hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for what Ellis is doing here anymore.

Strangely, this month’s Captain America is “The Trial of Captain America” part three, and yet the cover (at left) says “It begins!” Huh? The cover is accurate, since the actual trial starts in this issue.

Those details aside, it’s another good issue. The Red Skull’s daughter throws a big wrench into the works of the defense, in a typically Brubakeran clever way – she planned ahead. (If you think about it, in comics villains are proactive and heroes are reactive.) I’m not quite sure how Cap’s going to get out of this one, especially since the usual comic book cliché of doing a good deed so that all is forgiven is just not Brubaker’s style. Brubaker’s probably got more tricks up his sleeve, though. (Of course, the most straightforward solution to the problem – that Cap, currently Bucky Barnes, was a foreign agent during the Cold War – is to find a former-Soviet official who can actually testify that Cap was brainwashed into acting as the Winter Soldier. In some ways that seems too simple, yet in others it seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do, in keeping with Brubaker’s writing style.)

All things considered, I think Steve Rogers is more interesting as Cap than Bucky is, but I’m not sure where Bucky really fits in in the modern Marvel universe otherwise. No doubt Steve will take up the mantle again eventually, though.

Jonathan Hickman’s S.H.I.E.L.D. has been getting good word-of-mouth, but I’ve found it pretty tedious. It’s a combination shadow history/conspiracy book: S.H.I.E.L.D. has been around for thousands of years protecting the world against amazing threats (like Galactus). In the 1950s, a young man named Leonid is being inducted, but his father, the Night Machine, tries to stop it. He in turn is stopped by Howard Stark and Nathaniel Richards, and the three disappear. Leonid then learns that he’s in the middle of a power struggle between S.H.I.E.L.D. leaders Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci, both of whom (along with Nostradamus) seem to be immortal.

Aside from feeling that another “everything you know is wrong” story set in the Marvel Universe seems like overkill, the presence of all these real-life figures, still living centuries after their supposed deaths, seems basically ridiculous. Basically the series hasn’t sold me on any of its core elements, and the story itself has been pretty ponderous.

That said, this issue is better than the ones that have gone before, as we find that Stark, Richards and the Night Machine have been thrown hundreds of thousands of years into the future, where Earth seems to be devoid of humanity. But they come across the remnants of a city (beautifully depicted in a 2-page spread by Dustin Weaver) strongly reminiscent of the age of Rama-Tut (one of the Fantastic Four’s old foes). Of course, it’s not entirely clear how this diversion fits into the main story, but it is the most gosh-wow moment in the series so far. (It has an appearance at the end by someone whom I infer is Snowbird of Alpha Flight. And the revelation that the Night Machine is in fact Nikola Tesla, which is rather less cool a fact.)

The rest of the issue furthers Leonid’s introduction to the Newton/Da Vinci backstory, as well as filling in some of Stark and Richards’ backstory. Decent enough stuff, but still a lot more telling than doing, which is standard for this series. Overall S.H.I.E.L.D. could be really good, but it would have to be really different for that to happen. Unless all of this is the barest introduction to a long arc – which picks up fairly soon – I expect I’ll get bored and drop the series. (And it’s even slower than I’d thought, because it’s being published bimonthly!)

I picked up the first two issues of The Royal Historian of Oz at the SLG booth at APE in the fall. Although I’m hardly an Oz fanatic, I enjoyed the Baum books when I was a kid, and I’ve enjoyed some of the spin-off titles that have been published in the last 20 years. (Indeed, I think they’re a strong argument for letting creations fall into the public domain once their creators die.) I think my favorite was Oz Squad, which started as a dark take on the series (Tik Tok comes to Earth and his morality spring runs down, causing him to become a psychopath, and the “original four” Oz characters have to take him down and bring him back), but toned down the darkness in later issues in an entertaining time travel story.

Royal Historian takes place in a dystopian future in which Jasper Fizzle writes new Oz stories (despite having no talent), and is branded an outlaw by the keepers of Oz lore. But then Jasper finds a way to get to Oz itself, and brings back some of its wonders to put on display. His son, Frank, is the book’s hero, having been embarrassed by his father’s obsession, but then amazed at what Frank brings back from Oz. However Frank is then captured by Ozma and her citizens to be held hostage until Jasper returns the items he’s stolen.

This issue focuses on Frank’s reactions to actually being in Oz, and takes the interesting approach of overwhelming him with characters in very short order – also overwhelming me, the reader, as I don’t remember half the characters who show up here. Jellia Jamb I kind of remember, but Button-Bright? The Glass Cat? At first I found it too much to take in, but then I figured that was kind of the point: Given Oz’s substantial backstory and large cast, a real person being thrown into it might be similarly overwhelmed. Kind of clever, if that’s what writer Tommy Kovac intended. After a mishap in the castle, Frank is sent with the Tin Woodsman to live in the countryside, where he gets a more measured exposure to some of the wonders of Oz.

The story has been a little slow so far, but it’s getting more entertaining now that we’re in Oz and not on the dreary Earth that Kovacs and artist Andy Hirsch have come up with. Hirsch has a cartoony style (somewhat similar to that of Rob Guillory on Chew), but his panels are pretty complex. It’s always interesting to see how different artists take on the Oz characters, and Hirsch makes the Scarecrow look kind of creepy, while the Woodsman is downright inhuman, albeit likable in his way.

I think the biggest drawback to the book is that few characters in it are likable: Jasper is a talentless obsessive, and now a thief. Frank is a bit of a blank slate, largely defined by his frustrating with his father. Most of the Oz characters shown in this issue seem mentally unbalanced at best, and as creepy as the Scarecrow in many ways. The book really needs Frank to become better-defined and his own man. Otherwise it’s hard to find someone to root for, or a cause I can believe they’d get behind. If the creators keep publishing (always a risky proposition for small-press comics) and can work out some of these issues, then this could be a lot of fun. But it’s not there yet.

That’s all for this year! Thanks for reading!

This Week’s Haul

Quite a large week this week – with no collections! And I think every Image comic I buy came out this week. Weird.

  • American Vampire #10, by Scott Snyder & Mateus Sontolouco (DC/Vertigo)
  • DC Universe: Legacies #8 of 10, by Len Wein, Scott Kolins, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway & Frank Quitely (DC)
  • Green Lantern Corps #55, by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham & Batt (DC)
  • Green Lantern: Larfleeze Christmas Special #1, by Geoff Johns & Brett Booth (DC)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes #8, by Paul Levitz, Yildiray Cinar, Daniel HDR, Wayne Faucher & Bob Wiacek (DC)
  • Power Girl #19, by Judd Winick & Sami Basri (DC)
  • Zatanna #8, by Paul Dini & Cliff Chiang (DC)
  • Fantastic Four #586, by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting & Rick Magyar (Marvel)
  • Incognito: Bad Influences #2 of 6, by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips (Marvel/Icon)
  • Incorruptible #13, by Mark Waid & Marcio Takara (Boom)
  • Chew #16, by John Layman & Rob Guillory (Image)
  • Dynamo 5 Holiday Special 2010 #1, by Jay Faerber & Marcio Takara (Image)
  • Invincible #76, by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley & Cliff Rathburn (Image)
  • Morning Glories #5, by Nick Spencer & Joe Eisma (Image)
  • The Sixth Gun #7, by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt (Oni)
I can’t believe it took me this long to realize that DC Universe: Legacies is structurally the same as the 1999 mini-series Superman and Batman: World’s Finest. In fact, this issue walks the same ground as issue #9 of that series, the replacement Superman and Batman from the mid-1990s (plus the Green Lantern/Parallax development). I’ve always had a soft spot for the World Series series, which had an understated story exploring the development of Superman and Batman’s friendship (which started off strained) and some surprisingly good artwork from artists I was not generally familiar with.

Despite having higher-profile artists, including some of my favorites, Legacies is not as good a series. The framing story of a Metropolis policeman watching the DC Universe develop from the late 1930s to today is pretty generic and progressing slowly, and not as strong as the (still fairly loose) background story in World’s Finest. Plus, another survey of DC’s history doesn’t really seem necessary; I’d been hoping this series would be more than that.

With 2 issues left, there’s time for writer Len Wein to pull a rabbit out of his hat and make this series something surprising. But after 8 issues, it looks like what we see is what we get. It’s okay, but nothing special.

Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four is on the cusp of its first big development, the death of one of the team members. While I’ve felt the series has been rather slow and even dull so far, his manipulation of the build-up to “Three” has been pretty good, putting the heroes into perilous situations where any of the might die: The Thing has reverted to human form for a month, just as some minions of Annihilus attack the Baxter Building, which he, the Human Torch and the kids must defend. Mister Fantastic has gone into space with Galactus to find the corpse of the world-devourer’s future self, and Reed is trying to evacuate the remaining inhabitants of an artificial world before Galactus destroys it. (This is a pretty clever extension of a story laid down by Mark Millar in his run on the book.) And the Invisible Woman is trying to stave off a war between the Sub-Mariner and his kingdom and the more-sinister-than-they-appear (according to Namor) prehistoric Atlanteans who have recently reappeared.

While I’ve been skeptical of Hickman as a master-planner so far (his S.H.I.E.L.D. series has been pretty unconvincing as a millennia-long-global-conspiracy yarn), how he’s assembled the pieces here is actually pretty impressive now that I see it. This is hardly the first time one of the FF has died (or at least been pronounced dead) – it feels almost as old hat as the team breaking up – but it’s how the ramifications of the death are handled which will make or break the event.

And of course Steve Epting’s art is always a joy to see. He’s got everything Brian Hitch brings to the table, but with superior layouts faces that seem more realistic. How this guy isn’t a superstar by now, I don’t know.

Since I last checked in with Dynamo 5 in my blog, there’s been a mini-series (Sins of the Father) and now this holiday special. The characters have recently had their powers switched around among them, a gimmick I’m not really a fan of: It always seems to suggest that the writer either has run out of ideas for the original set-up, or he decided that the original arrangement was the wrong one, and in this case I think the new arrangement is a definitely downgrade to the original. That aside, the story in Sins was pretty solid, leading up to a big cathartic moment for Smasher, the team’s strong-man, who in everyday life is a wimpy kid.

This one-shot involves the team trying to track down an escaped super-villain, who seems to have attacked two teenage girls. Not all it what it seems, of course, but unfortunately the heartwarming holiday payoff isn’t really plausible or satisfying. Moreover, I’m not real big on artist Marcia Takara (who also draws Incorruptible for Boom, where I’m also not a fan of his), as I find his sketchy finishes, simple layouts, and minimal backgrounds really make the book not very attractive.

I’d say to give this one a miss, except that it wraps up with five short epilogues portending future story directions, and they’re pretty good. But then, I expect what we learn here will be recapitulated when the plot points come to fruition. So yeah, the holiday special isn’t required reading unless you’re already on-board the Dynamo 5 train. If you’re not, either wait for the next mini-series, or pick up Sins when it arrives in trade paperback.

This Week’s Haul

  • Green Lantern #60, by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke & Keith Champagne (DC)
  • Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #5, by Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin & Cam Smith (DC)
  • Time Masters: Vanishing Point #5 of 6, by Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • The Unwritten #20, by Mike Carey & Peter Gross (DC/Vertigo)
  • Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula #2 of 6, by Ian Edginton & Davide Fabbri (DC/Wildstorm)
  • Captain America: Man Out of Time #2 of 5, by Mark Waid, Jorge Molina & Karl Kesel (Marvel)
  • Powers: The Definitive Hardcover Collection vol 4, by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming (Marvel/Icon)
  • Mouse Guard: The Black Axe #1 of 6, by David Petersen (Archaia)
  • Next Men #1, by John Byrne (IDW)
  • Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #2 of 5, by Brian Clevinger & Scott Wegener (Red 5)
The latest hardcover collection of Powers is out, and it’s a big one, collecting the first eighteen issues of the second series. It’s actually a reasonable jumping-on point for the series, but, you know, why “jump on” with a $35 hardcover collection when you can either buy the first such volume, or just buy the currently-ongoing third series in single-issue form?

That aside, the second volume of the series is much more ambitious, and much darker, than the first. Writer Brian Michael Bendis doesn’t spell out such details, but clearly several years have passed since the first issue of the first series. The events of “The Sellouts” have led the United States to outlaw the use of powers, and require people who have them to register them. As you might expect, this means that supervillains go to town (because why should they care of their powers are outlawed), and law enforcement is badly outgunned since all the heroes have retired to comply with the law. The city of Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim is being divided up by three crime lords.

This volume is intense: Deena gets captured by one of the crime lords, leading to a huge and unwelcome change in her life. Walker discovers that a girl he’s taken under his wing since her parents were killed has powers – very surprising powers. Becoming her mentor, she leads other heroes to reconsider their decision to retire. And the case of a man killed by a flying man leads to a big change in Walker’s life. This volume of Powers is about secrets, people who keep them, people who learn about them, and what people do to keep them hidden or when they’re revealed. It remains true to its noir-detective roots, while expanding the cast and setting and raising the stakes.

The second series is basically one long story, and it’s really excellent. Thumbing through this made me go back and read the conclusion again. I recommend it highly, as taken as a whole it’s probably the best thing Bendis has ever written.

Oh yeah, and Michael Avon Oeming’s art is quite good, too. I admire how he takes the animation-style simplicity he works with and adapts it to a very sophisticated and not-at-all-for-kids story. The incongruity has long since passed, and now it’s just very good artwork in support of a very good story – and that’s a very good thing.

After a 4-issue fill-in series of short stories by other creators, David Petersen’s back with a new Mouse Guard series, The Black Axe. The title character was introduced in the second series as the nigh-legendary champion of mousekind. As this series starts 37 years before the previous series, I think we’re seeing the Black Axe of that series being born, or maybe a broader exploration of his legend. I’m not sure.

Sometimes I get a little frustrated with the pace of the series, as there seem to be so many tantalizing details of mouse culture and history, which only get parceled out a tiny bit at a time. But it’s still a fun series, and Petersen’s artwork is lovely, worth the price of admission by itself.

After a long, long wait, John Byrne has returned to his creator-owned project of the 1990s, Next Men. The first series ran for 31 issues (more or less), and IDW has collected the series in recent years in both black-and-white paperback volumes, and a set of three color hardcover volumes. (Strangely, the first volume is a smaller form factor then the other two; wonder what idiot at IDW came up with that bright idea? But anyway.)

This new series picks up after the rather abrupt end of the first one, and includes an 8-page recap of what’s gone before, so you can just jump on here, although I do recommend the earlier series, as it’s excellent. But to put it briefly: The Next Men are five people engineered by a secret government project to give them super powers. Following various adventures in the modern day – during which one of then left the group to join a religious clan – they’ve apparently been pulled back to prehistoric times, where one of them is having lucid dreams involving different twists on their previous exploits, and two of them have disappeared. And from the last page and the cover of next issue, it looks like this series is going to involve a heavy dose of time travel, into the past, which would be rather the flip side of the first issue which involved time travel from the future.

The first Next Men series took quite a while to develop, whereas Byrne seems to be trying to hook the reader with the cool stuff up front, and that’s probably a good idea. But I expect there will be plenty of twists and turns while Byrne pilots the story to its ultimate conclusion.

The first Next Men series also fell at a time when Byrne was experimenting with his art style quite a bit, and the art in the series changed and evolved in pretty substantial ways during its run (not all of it working for me; in particular some of his characters’ faces and expressions looks kind of weird in the middle of the run). But Byrne’s style has remained largely the same for the last decade or so, so I expect we’ll see more consistency this time around. While I’m among those who preferred his style in the 70s and early 80s to his newer style, he’s still a very good, very imaginative artist, and working at IDW seems to have reenergized him as a comics creator overall (as I’ve said before, his Star Trek work for them has been a lot of fun).

All-in-all, while I personally could have done without the big story recap in the middle, I understand why it’s there, and this first issue is very promising. I’m very much looking forward to more.

(By the way, the John Byrne forum has a FAQ about Next Men and the new series.)

This Week’s Haul

  • Fables #100, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Andrew Pepoy, Chrissie Zullo & others (DC/Vertigo)
  • First Wave #5 of 6, by Brian Azzarello, Rags Morales & Rick Bryant (DC)
  • Knight and Squire #3 of 6, by Paul Cornell & Jimmy Broxton (DC)
  • Echo #26, by Terry Moore (Abstract)
  • Lady Mechanika #1, by Joe Benitez (Aspen)
  • The Mystery Society #5 of 5, by Steve Niles & Fiona Staples (IDW)
Fables reaches the big one-zero-zero this month – quite a milestone for a comic that features no superheroes at all. I’ve been on board since the beginning, and while it’s had its ups and downs, it’s been quite a fun ride.

Since the war against The Adversary wrapped up in #75, the book has taken an even darker turn (and considering the book’s first story arc was entitled “Legends in Exile”, that’s saying something): A powerful entity named Mister Dark (whom some compare to Neil Gaiman’s character Morpheus, but I think the similarity is superficial at best) destroyed Fabletown, forcing the surviving fables to flee to The Farm in upstate New York. Mister Dark has been building his own edifice atop the remains of Fabletown, but finally someone has dared to challenge him: Frau Totenkinder, having been reborn as a young woman and calling herself Bellflower, engages him in a duel to the death of one of them in this issue.

The Mister Dark storyline has had some gripping moments, but overall the series has felt somewhat adrift, much like the Fables themselves. The most recent story arc highlighted the backstory of Rose Red, and her getting her act together to be a leader on the Farm again. But since Bellflower is the one who actually brings the fight to Mister Dark, that arc now feels a little superfluous. Fables has always tended to take a circuitous route to the end of its stories, but whether they end up being fun has depended more on the characters involved than anything else; Bigby Wolf, Snow White and Boy Blue carried the first 75 issues, but the recent focus on Rose Red and the witches has been a lot less successful, as none of them have really been sympathetic characters. More to the point, they’re all fairly inwardly-turned characters, so their interactions with the other Fables tend to be not very entertaining.

The conclusion of this issue is disappointing since it’s more of a transition than an end to the Mister Dark story, and I was really ready for his story to be over. The big fight in the issue is quite well done, but I’d been hoping for a different outcome.

The issue contains lots of extras – short stories, even paper doll cut-outs – which feels like an anniversary issue or giant-sized “annual” of years past. Certainly a nice package. I’d just been hoping for more out of the main story.

I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything rom Aspen Comics before – they seem to largely specialize in ladies-in-skimpy-costumes fare with run-of-the-mill stories. But Joe Benitez’ new steampunk series Lady Mechanika interested me. (That cover on the left, by the way, is by J. Scott Campbell, and is awful. The main cover, which you can see here is much better. But the Campbell cover is the only one my retailer still had in stock when I was there.) Certainly steampunk doesn’t have a shortage of improbably-skin-baring Victorian ladieswear, and Lady Mechanika‘s interiors seem right in keeping with the genre as I’ve seen it otherwise.

The story is okay: Lady Mechanika is an almost-legendary vigilante in the English city of Mechanika, a woman who’s left-machine, but whose role in the city’s life seems vague (is she a protector or avenger like Batman, or just someone investigating other unusual creatures like herself?). In this issue she’s looking into a report of another woman who’s turned up in the city with mechanical limbs, who promptly died after her arrival. The story and art are long on atmosphere, but short on plot advancement or characterization. It’s not bad, by any means, but it’s lightweight. I’m not familiar with Joe Benitez’ work, but he’s a pretty good artist, definitely a cut above the typical Image-style artist.

The book has some promise, but it’s also at great risk of being an ordinary steampunk adventure. Time will tell which direction it heads.

Steve Niles’ The Mystery Society wraps up this month. As a new entry in the monster-hunter adventure genre (alongside Hellboy and The Perhapanauts), it holds up quite well, with a strong dose of The Thin Man-inspired marital intrigue between Nick and Anastasia Mystery, with several peculiar characters joining them in their quest to investigate strange occurrences and liberate mysterious objects from around the world. It’s not going to set the world on fire, but it’s fun and funny.

The best part, I think, has been watching artist Fiona Staples develop, expanding her range of expressions and poses. Her biggest drawback as an artist is that her backgrounds tend to be sketchy-to-nonexistent, which makes the book feel like it’s taking place in a multicolored mist at times. Hopefully she’ll flesh out that part of her skill set on her next project.

I don’t know that The Mystery Society has a huge amount of long-term potential, but I’d read another series about these characters. Whether I’d go beyond that depends on whether Niles has some solid character surprises up his sleeve.

This Week’s Haul

Despite having Thanksgiving week off, I never did an entry for that week, so here’s the catch-up:

Last Week:

  • Action Comics #895, by Paul Cornell & Pete Woods (DC)
  • Batman Beyond #6 of 6, by Adam Beechen, Ryan Benjamin & John Stanisci (DC)
  • Justice Society of America #45, by Marc Guggenheim & Scott Kolins (DC)
  • Madame Xanadu #29, by Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder & Richard Friend (DC/Vertigo)
  • Captain America #612, by Ed Brubaker & Butch Guice (Marvel)
  • Fantastic Four #585, by Jonathan Hickman & Steve Epting (Marvel)
  • Chip: Second Crack #2 of 3, by Richard Moore (Antarctic)
  • Incorruptible #12, by Mark Waid & Marcio Takara (Boom)

This Week:

  • Action Comics Annual #12, by Paul Cornell, Marco Rudy & Ed Benes (DC)
  • American Vampire #9, by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque & Mateus Santolouco (DC/Vertigo)
  • Fables: Witches TPB, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, David Lapham, Andrew Pepoy, Jim Fern & Craig Hamilton (DC/Vertigo)
  • Secret Six #28, by Gail Simone & Jim Calafiore (DC)
  • Irredeemable #20, by Mark Waid & Peter Krause (Boom)
  • RASL #9, by Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books)
  • The Boys #49, by Garth Ennis & Russ Braun (Dynamite)
The Batman Beyond mini-series has been fairly clever and entertaining, sitting sort of in-between the kids books that DC publishes based on its animated properties, and the more serious mainstream fare. This one attempts to bridge the two continuities – comic book Batman and animated Batman Beyond – and does a pretty good job. I’m not really a fan of Ryan Benjamin’s artwork, which also tries to bridge the styles between the two continuities and I thought just looks kind of weird, the characters not having much emotional range beyond a grimace or a scowl. But it’s okay.

The series has apparently been successful enough to warrant a new ongoing series, but while this was a cute little series I didn’t enjoy it enough to want to jump on-board for a longer-term commitment. One of the problems with Batman Beyond was that it never managed to establish itself as a series with a purpose; the best episodes tended to be ones revolving around Bruce Wayne’s past, and while Terry McGinnis – the Batman of the future – is an enjoyable character, he’s not strong enough to carry the series himself. I just don’t see that an ongoing series will provide a satisfying payoff, especially given that the mini-series was fairly light and by-the-numbers.

In the “light entertainment” department, this is a pretty good series and the ongoing series may be just as good. But for me, I think I get the idea and that’s enough.

Madame Xanadu comes to a close with this issue, with Amy Reeder (formerly Amy Reeder Hadley) coming back for the denouement.

The series has been erratic, starting with Madame Xanadu’s origins in the days of King Arthur (who is revealed as being Nimue, who in DC continuity is the woman responsible – tragically, in this instance – for imprisoning Merlin prior to the fall of Camelot, and also Morgan Le Fey’s sister), and progressing up through the 1960s. So it’s basically been a big retrospective, since the character is well-established (albeit as a mysterious individual without any personality) in present-day continuity.

The series has been an extended story of Xanadu’s maturity, starting as a credulous girl who encounters the Phantom Stranger, meeting him again through the centuries to her frequent regret (it’s also implied that the Stranger is living his life backwards through time, and interesting nugget which isn’t really explored), and also manipulated by her sister, but who gradually gains maturity, wisdom and knowledge to become a powerful sorceress. She’s certainly a more interesting character here than she’s ever been before.

Yet the series never really gelled for me, as it frequently wandered away from its main story arc, and seemed to lack focus. I think Wagner was enjoying playing around in the corners of the DC Universe, in much the way Neil Gaiman did in Sandman, but I don’t think he was nearly as effective in doing so; he doesn’t have the same touch for the fabulous that Gaiman does. I often find Wagner’s writing to be rather distant, more interesting for the complex and subtle mechanics of his plots and less for his characters, who tend to be rather flat (I love both Grendel and Mage, but neither is really memorable for its characters). Madame Xanadu is one of his stronger characters, but he seems to struggle with how to develop her in a satisfying manner, especially since the stories have been so low-key in nature. Seen in hindsight it’s clearer how he was building the character, but the emotional impact was often muted. The most effective issue on that score was a 1950s housewife who finds her body being creepily transformed, but I didn’t think the follow-up (after our heroine dealt with the problem) provided a satisfying resolution for the character; Wagner follows up on her here, but her story, although it has a happy outcome, is seen from a distance and doesn’t feel very rewarding for the reader.

Amy Reeder’s artwork has been the real strength of the series, channeling a bit of Charles Vess in her designs and layouts, and delivering most of the emotional impact the series did have. I sometimes wished she had an inker who would soften her lines, someone like Joe Rubenstein or even Tom Palmer, but certainly she’s quite a find and I hope she gets more work in the future.

Overall, though, Madame Xanadu has been a bit disappointing; I suspect DC hoped it would build a following more in line with Sandman or Starman, but it was never really that kind of book. Really it was just the sort of book that would slip under the radar in today’s market, and it didn’t have any developments or twists that made me want to tell people that they must read this book. 28 issues is a good run for a low-profile book like this, but it feels like Wagner should somehow have gone for the splashier storyline so it could be more high profile. In that way, the series feels like a missed opportunity.

Richard Moore’s plan seems to be to corner the “cute, sexy, and a little scary” comic book market. He did a great job on this in his regular comic Boneyard, which he wrapped up a while back since I guess it wasn’t making much money. Now he’s been doing a number of little side projects for Antarctic Press, one of which is Chip. This comic features a 4-inch gargoyle who is determined to show he can be just as scary as his brethren, with the help of his pixie friend Ash. He’s not very successful, though. Second Crack is his second series, in which Chip and Ash are trying to capture the Jersey Devil.

The thing is, Moore’s gone way too far into the “cute” realm for my tastes, and Chip is a pretty slight book in both plot and characters. His writing style works better when he can develop things over a period of time as in Boneyard, or his more serious wild west fantasy Far West. Moore has a pretty wry sense of humor, but the jokes here seem cheap.

Heck, I somehow missed the first issue of this series, and I don’t feel like I missed very much. Hopefully he’ll have the time to do something more ambitious sometime soon.

I think I’m running out of gas on Gail Simone’s Secret Six. Part of it is that Jim Calafiore has replaced Nicola Scott as the regular artist, and he seems like the go-to guy for second-tier series who need a reliable artist: But while he’s reliable, his figures are too stiff and generic for my tastes. I had the same problem when he was drawing Marvel’s Exiles series.

But part of it is that the series has been floundering around, losing its focus, that being a group of mercenaries with extreme personalities who have trouble getting along. The team broke up and splintered into two factions, both of whom ended up in the underground primeval world of Skartaris, fighting each other and the locals, a story which wraps up in this issue. I wasn’t quite clear what they were supposed to be doing there – I think one group was being manipulated by a rogue element inside the US government, while the other was sent by Amanda Waller, but no one seemed to be keeping their eyes on the prize, whatever it was. It seemed like an excuse to have the protagonists beat up on one another.

The series has been at its best when it puts its characters – who have questionable morals – in situations which challenge both their well-being and what sense of right and wrong they have. But such stories usually require a pretty strong focus, especially with a large-and-growing cast of characters as exists here, particularly when the characters are a group of anti-heroes at best, and the reader won’t always relate to them. Throwing in an exotic land and a confusing mission as this story featured throws off the balance of the story and makes it difficult to figure out what the story is trying to accomplish.

Series about villains are difficult to keep going, especially characters who aren’t ones who naturally tend to work together, and Secret Six is probably the most successful such comic in history (Suicide Squad, remember, was anchored by several clear-cut heroes; Secret Six is more like trying to write a series about The Joker or Lex Luthor). But it feels like it’s spiraling out of control.

This Week’s Haul

In the wake of news that J. Michael Straczynski has bailed out of writing Superman and Wonder Woman due to the success of the Superman: Earth One graphic novel, I’ve decided to drop those books too. I mean, if he can’t commit to finishing the stories he started, why should I commit to finishing reading them? Honestly, though, his Superman was awful, just nonsensical and boring. Wonder Woman was better, but nothing I’m going to miss.

And yes, I skipped Superman: Earth One, too, because, you know, another retelling of Superman’s early days? No thanks.

Oh, and both Batman: The Return and the first issue of Batman Inc. shipped this week, but as I said last week I’ve pretty much gotten the idea where Grant Morrison’s Batman work at DC is concerned (quirky, yet dull and characterization-free), so I decided the end of The Return of Bruce Wayne was the end of it for me, and I passed on both those issues.

  • DC Universe: Legacies #7 of 10, by Len Wein, Scott Kolins, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway & Brian Bolland (DC)
  • The Flash #6, by Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul (DC)
  • Green Lantern #59, by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy (DC)
  • Green Lantern Corps #54, by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham & Batt (DC)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes #7, by Paul Levitz, Yildiray Cinar, Wayne Faucher & Francis Portela (DC)
  • Power Girl #18, by Judd Winick & Sami Basri (DC)
  • Zatanna #7, by Adam Beechen, Chad Hardin & Wayne Faucher (DC)
  • Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard #4 of 4, by David Petersen, Craig Rousseau, Karl Kerschl & Mark Smylie (Archaia)
  • Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil, by Mike Mignola & Richard Corben (Dark Horse)
  • Grandville: Mon Amour HC, by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
  • Morning Glories #4, by Nick Spencer & Joe Eisma (Image)
  • Ghost Projekt #5 of 5, by Joe Harris & Steve Rolston (Oni)
  • The Sixth Gun #6, by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt (Oni)
Speaking of series I’m dropping, this is it for me and The Flash. Geoff Johns’ writing has been okay, but the title, “The Dastardly Death of the Rogues”, had very little to do with the actual story (only one “Rogue” died, and he wasn’t even the real deal), and the plot felt rather recycled (time travel, changing history, etc.). And as I’ve said before, I haven’t been at all convinced by Johns’ handling of Barry Allen returning to his old life and job after what must have been 5 or 10 years of time in Central City, with little questioning from his colleagues and friends as to where he’s been. The adventure has been a decent romp, but it didn’t really hang together.

But the thing that’s really driving me away is Francis Manapul’s artwork, which is sketchy, simplistic, makes many of the characters look like teenagers, is short on backgrounds, and features some really bland layouts. His art has been getting rave reviews from some corners, which frankly astonishes me, but diff’rent strokes, I guess. It just hasn’t worked for me at all, and his name on a book will be a big caution sign for me in the future.

Maybe down the road I’ll regret dropping this series so soon, as I did Johns’ previous resurrected hero’s series, Green Lantern. But at least that series had top-notch artwork, even if it got off to a slow start. There’s really nothing that appeals to me about this Flash series.

And speaking of Green Lantern that series is still dealing with Hal Jordan trying to hold together an alliance of the seven colored ring corps as they try to track down the seven avatars of the corps. Since some of the corps are outright villains, this is a tough group to manage, and this issue focuses largely on Flash trying to talk some sense into GL that perhaps he should be turning to his earthbound friends – no slouches themselves in the power department – rather than the murderous Red Lanterns or the avaricious Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern.

The problem with this story is that Flash is absolutely right, and the set-up smells strongly of Johns being just too in love with the idea of a rainbow lantern corps that he’s making GL behave out of character in order to keep the idea going. While an alliance between the Green (will) and Blue (hope) corps, and maybe even the Star Sapphires (love) makes some sense, working with Larfleeze or the Red Lanterns is borderline-insane. And frankly the fact that bad things happen at the end of this issue are the natural consequences of GL not listening to reason. It makes the story difficult to believe in.

I think the premise is supposed to be that the Blackest Night changed the status quo among all the ring corps, but it doesn’t really hold up: Absent a clear-and-present danger (and the avatars don’t really present one), it’s hard to believe that these corps would work together and ignore their natural impulses. And at some point the series is going to have to deal with the presence of several thousand rings of each color flying around the galaxy, because otherwise it’s going to lead to everything being destroyed. Johns has raised the power level too high without really considering where that’s going to lead, and having it lead somewhere else makes the story less and less plausible.

Let’s move on to some good stuff: Grandville: Mon Amour is (you guessed it) the sequel to Bryan Talbot’s anthropomorphic alternate-history scientific-romance thriller (whew!) that I read earlier this year. The setting is Britain and France in the present day, but a world where France conquered Europe under Napoleon, and Britain has only recently won its independence. Detective-Inspector LeBrock is one of Scotland Yard’s best investigators, and was recently involved in an escapade which resulted in the death of the French Emperor, as well as the death of a woman he loved. But he’s pulled out of his misery by the escape of “Mad Dog” Mastock, a former revolutionary who later became a deadly serial killer, whom LeBrock apprehended several years ago. Mastock escapes from prison on the day of his execution, and LeBrock is forced to resign from the Yard in order to pursue him. As before, LeBrock and his partner Detective Ratzi follow Mastock back to Grandville (which I believe is Paris) to find out what he’s up to and to bring him down. As in the first book, the case will change the course of nations.

Oh yeah, and all the characters are human-sized animals: LeBrock is a badger, Ratzi’s a rat, and there are dogs, cats, rams, pigs, and various other creatures. Plus a few humans, who are a lower-class oddity in this world. Other than very muted undertones of racial differences, Talbot doesn’t really do much with the different species in the book, but it does make the work visually different. But I found it perfectly easy to ignore the anthropomorphic renderings and just enjoy the story for what it is.

And it is a very good story, as Talbot – as he always does – has meticulously worked out the setting and characters of his story, and sumptuously renders every panel. It’s really a beautiful work (as was the first volume). The story is a page-turner, too, with a smashing climax (although there’s an extra layer of discoveries to be made at the end which I felt was a little too much, but it’s not a big deal). While I haven’t read everything Talbot has done, I’ve read a lot of it, and his writing and art have gotten consistently better with time. I hope he’s planning to continue doing Grandville volumes, because the first two have been great. If any of the elements I’ve described in the story appeal to you, I suggest you check it out.

(You can see a preview of the volume here. Note especially that the interior art is much lusher than the relatively flat cover to the left.)

Two Oni comics stories wrap up this week. Ghost Projekt has been an excellent 5-issue miniseries about Will Haley, an American weapons inspector working in Russia, who teams up with with Anya Romanova, a Russian agent, to learn the secret of the Cold War Project Dosvidanya, whose former members have been turning up dead. It was a nifty combination of the post-Cold War Russian setting and a fantasy/horror plot. The payoff is pretty good, although there’s a development at the end involving Anya which I didn’t understand – I think I’ve forgotten a plot detail somewhere. I also appreciated that the story has a climax, and then several pages of denouement trying up loose ends – too many stories these days forget how important that part is.

Steve Rolston‘s art is simple but extremely effective; his style feels like it comes from doing comic strips, but he does a great job drawing the darker stuff, too. It gives the story a cheerful veneer without compromising the seriousness of the story – it’s an approach you wouldn’t see much from one of the major publishers.

I hope there will be a sequel series, because this was a lot of fun.

The other series that’s been a lot of fun is The Sixth Gun, which could easily have been a 6-issue miniseries, but apparently it’s continuing beyond this issue. Hooray! I’ve gushed about the series before, which involves supernatural guns in the Wild West, an insane Confederate General trying to bring about the apocalypse, and the handful of men (and the woman who inherits the General’s gun) trying to stop them. This issue has the big showdown with the General and his men, and it’s a good one, with some pretty awesome moments during the big battle. I don’t think it’s a surprise (since the series continues on) that the good guys prevail, although certainly there’s room for the General to return.

I’m curious to see where Bunn & Hurtt take the series next, after this climax. I could see them jumping the story forward in time, or they might continue the current narrative – if the latter, I hope they start to focus a little more on the characters since they should have more time to let them grow a bit.

This Week’s Haul

This week marks I think the third collection of Matt Wagner’s Mage: The Hero Discovered I’ve bought. It’s not quite as nice as the 2005 collection, except that that edition contained a printing error (missing text in one of the chapters), which was certainly annoying. So I decided to pick up this one. Now… which one do I keep?

Meanwhile, I’m finally all caught up on both Green Lantern Corps and Captain America with the collections out this week.

  • American Vampire #8, by Scott Snyder & Rafael Albuquerque (DC/Vertigo)
  • Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 of 6, by Grant Morrison, Lee Garbett, Pere Pérez, Alejandro Sicat & Walden Wong (DC)
  • Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse TPB, by Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Rebecca Buchman, Christian Alamy, Prentis Rollins & Tom Nguyen (DC)
  • Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #4, by Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin & Cam Smith (DC)
  • Knight and Squire #2 of 6, by Paul Cornell & Jimmy Broxton (DC)
  • T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1, by Nick Spencer, Cafu & Bit (DC)
  • The Unwritten #19, by Mike Carey & Peter Gross (DC/Vertigo)
  • Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula #1 of 6, by Ian Edginton, Davide Fabbri & Tom Mandrake (DC/Wildstorm)
  • Captain America: Two Americas TPB, by Ed Brubaker, Luke Ross, Butch Guice & Rick Magyar (Marvel)
  • Captain America: Forever Allies #4 of 4, by Roger Stern, Nick Dragotta, Marco Santucci, Patrick Piazzalunga, Brad Simpson, Chris Sotomayor & Andrew Crossley (Marvel)
  • Chew #15, by John Layman & Rob Guillory (Image)
  • Halcyon #1, by Marc Guggenheim, Tara Butters & Ryan Bodenheim (Image)
  • Mage: The Hero Discovered HC, by Matt Wagner (Image)
  • Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #1 of 5, by Brian Clevinger & Scott Wegener (Red 5)
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne wraps up a week after Batman actually returned in Batman and Robin. As with most of Grant Morrison’s Batman stuff, it’s so-so. It’s not helped by the uninspired Image-style artwork of Lee Garrett.

This whole story has been hamstrung by the overly-convoluted plot, in which Darkseid sent Batman into the distant past, slowly working his way to the present, and pursued by a “hyper-adapter infestation”. First, why would Darkseid pursue such a plan, and why would he use Batman, who he’s got to think is one of the people most likely to defeat his plan? Why not just unleash the creature immediately, and by surprise? Well, one reason is the second problem, which is that the creature doesn’t seem so tough, since Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern wrap the thing up, stuff it into a time sphere, and send it off to oblivion. Weak stuff, especially since it’s not clear the thing could have gone toe-to-toe with any of that trio anyway.

Morrison was once a writer who – despite his flaws – produced some ground-breaking stuff for DC. While I wasn’t a fan of every bit of it, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Invisibles and JLA were all key comics for fans of their day who wanted more than routine superhero fare. But JLA seemed to have made more of a mark on Morrison’s writing style than the other way around, as Morrison’s work over the last few years has been only a little more than routine superhero fare – slightly unorthodox in its style, but when he went farther than that it produced the basically-unreadable Final Crisis.

So all of this raises the question: What is Grant Morrison really accomplishing at DC comics, for the readers? Honestly Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern work has felt more inspired and coherent than Morrison’s Batman and related titles. Maybe Morrison is a huge Batman fan and is having the time of his life writing the character, but I don’t think it really shows in the final product, which has been uneven at best.

At this point I think I’ve long since gotten the idea of what Morrison is doing here, and it’s not doing much for me, so as I said last week I think this is it for me with Morrison’s mainstream DC titles. Maybe I’ll check in again when he seems to be doing something different again.

The second issue of Knight and Squire is so much better than the first that I wonder why Paul Cornell decided to lead with the first issue at all. This one is a much better introduction to the characters: We already know they’re a Batman and Robin type of duo, but we see them operating in their hometown and how they relate to the locals (it’s cute and clever, really), and then they face off against a group of evil Morris dancers (no, really). It’s not a profound story, but it’s fun and funny and the right amount of ridiculous. I hope the rest of the series is more like this issue.
I’ve always been unaccountably fascinated by the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a team of superhero-secret agents from a small publisher in the 1960s. The original series was not much to read compared to the typical Marvel Comic of the era, but they did have first-class artists (Wally Wood, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, etc.). What hooked me was the short-lived series from Deluxe Comics in the mid-80s, which not only had true top-notch art talent (George Pérez, Dave Cockrum, Jerry Ordway, and unfortunately Keith Giffen at his artistic nadir), but also outstanding writing, highlighted by the characterization of Lightning, whose speed suit causes him to age rapidly, and after just a few years of use he’s now an old man. Unfortunately that series came to a premature end because Deluxe though the Agents were in the public domain, when in fact they were not. The owner (the late John Carbonaro) licensed the character to a couple other companies, but none of them really took off. Now, after the success of DC’s Archives collections of the series, DC is publishing a new series, which apparently has no continuity relationship to the earlier series.

This series is taking the Lightning angle and running with it: Using any of the Agents gear causes its wearer to rapidly burn out, much like the premise of Marvel’s 1980s series Strikeforce: Morituri. (I wonder if writer Nick Spencer realizes the resemblance?) The first issue is pretty good, and suggests that it’s going to be more of an espionage play-and-counterplay story with overtones of superheroics than the other way around, which could be interesting. The art by the single-named artists Cafu and Bit is quite good, strongly resembling that of Paul Gulacy, albeit with less use of shadow.

I doubt it will ever replace the 80s series in my heart, but it’s got promise.

It’s pretty hard to write a “end of the age of superheroes” story, especially one deploying the usual Justice League/Avengers paradigm as the team of protagonists. Bill Willingham’s Pantheon (which I liked) took a “if the heroes win” approach, while Rick Remender’s The End League (which I didn’t) took an “if the villains win” approach. Now Image is publishing Halcyon, in which Marc Guggenheim and Tara Butters seem to be taking an “all the villains stop being villains” angle (with the possibility that it’s actually a devious villainous plot). The series are immediately nervous that they’ll be rendered redundant (because, after all, what fun is it to be a superhero without supervillains to beat on?), but maybe I’m reading too much into it: This first issue is really just the set-up, with some foreshadowing, and it’s pretty well done. Certainly good enough for me to stick around for a while to see where it’s going.

The art by Ryan Bodenheim is pretty erratic. His style seems inspired by that of early Doug Mahnke, maybe with a little Frank Quitely. His layouts are pretty good, but not very dynamic. The darker characters are rendered better than the purer hero types. And his anatomy, especially of the women, seems a little off to me. On the other hand, he seems to have talent and everyone has to start somewhere (he’s drawn a few other things over the last decade, but this is my first exposure to him), so maybe he’ll develop.

This Week’s Haul

  • Batman and Robin #16, by Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart, Chris Burnham & Frazer Irving (DC)
  • Secret Six #27, by Gail Simone & Jim Calafiore (DC)
  • Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom #6 of 6, by Peter Hogan, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story (DC/America’s Best Comics)
  • Captain America: Man Out of Time #1 of 5, by Mark Waid, Jorge Molina & Karl Kesel (Marvel)
  • Scarlet #3, by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev (Marvel/Icon)
  • Squadron Supreme Omnibus HC, by Mark Gruenwald, Bob Hall, Paul Ryan, John Buscema, Paul Neary, John Beatty, Sam De La Rosa, and others (Marvel)
  • Irredeemable #19, by Mark Waid & Peter Krause (Boom)
  • The Boys #48, by Garth Ennis & Russ Braun (Dynamite)
  • The Mystery Society #4 of 5, by Steve Niles & Fiona Staples (IDW)
  • Invincible #75, by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley & Cliff Rathburn (Image)
Even though The Return of Bruce Wayne hasn’t finished yet (and despite it being written by the same author), Bruce Wayne is back in this month’s Batman and Robin, to help clean up the disaster in Gotham City that Dick Grayson (the new Batman) and Damian Wayne (the current Robin) couldn’t stop. Seems like someone at DC had trouble with scheduling.

The issue is pretty good. Naturally I much prefer Cameron Stewart’s art to Frazer Irving’s – my exposure to Irving so far is such that I’ll be wary of buying any comics he illustrates in the future, because I really don’t care for his style. The story involves Bruce facing off against the man claiming to be his father, Thomas Wayne. In the minimalist style he’s employing these days, Grant Morrison makes it more-or-less clear what’s really going on (the man is an impostor with a supernatural background), but he isn’t really a very scary villain, just another blustering idiot who’s stumbled into Gotham not realizing how dangerous it is. His final encounter with the Joker demonstrates that. But as I’ve said, Morrison has never been very strong at characterization, so stories which might otherwise be character-based tend to fall a bit (or a bit more) flat.

That’s been the downfall of Batman and Robin as a series: Dick was never portrayed as a very strong Batman (despite having been a very strong character when Marv Wolfman wrote him as one of the Teen Titans, and one quite different from Batman), and while there were hints of an unusual tension between him and Damian-as-Robin, it never came to any fruition, it all felt mechanical and not very important. A writer with a better notion of how to handle characters would have been able to make their relationship the foundation of the series, but instead it ended up being another wacky Morrison plot-fest, which seemed to work against what the series wanted to be.

I think this is Morrison’s last issue of the series, and after Return wraps up we’ll be getting a new Batman status quo, “Batman Incorporated”, with multiple Batmen keeping the peace (and/or busting heads) around the world. It’s certainly a Morrisonesque idea, but again it’s quite far removed from any promise of strong characterization, and frankly I think this exhausts my interest in Morrison’s take on Batman, so I think this will be it for me. It’s been a decidedly mediocre run.

Mark Waid takes on the first few days of Captain America in the modern era, after having been in suspended animation for decades following World War II, in Captain America: Man Out of Time. This issue takes place mainly in those dying days of the Second World War, explaining who Cap and Bucky were as people (Cap the strong silent type, Bucky a bit of a clown – the latter a little at odds with Ed Brubaker’s portrayal in his ongoing Cap series, but there’s enough room for both portrayals, really), before their ill-fated final mission. Waid shifts to a first-person perspective of Cap being knocked unconscious by the blast that kills his partner, and then waking up in the Avengers’ submarine decades later, with a first-person narrative (as a letter to an army general) of his reactions to the Avengers themselves, and their arrival in New York. It’s quite well done, worth the price of admission all by itself.

Waid has an interesting challenge from here on out, though. First of all, given that “today” is now 2010, Cap clearly didn’t wake up in 1963 as he did in the silver age, since he’d be 70 years old now. Therefore he probably woke up around 2000 or so (Brubaker’s run basically says as much), yet we have the Avengers in their goofy 1960s costumes, and I’m sure there are more bits of societal contrasts to come. Also, the story in which Cap was originally found had a pretty awkward strong of coincidences – such as the Avengers being turned to stone, as is alluded to here – which is tricky to write around. Waid heads off the reservation in pretty short order by having Cap have a new encounter at the end of this issue, with a cliffhanger ending. Waid is clearly going to be focusing on Cap all the way, but Cap’s identity after his return quickly became closely tied to that of the Avengers, so I’m wondering what Waid will do there. I could see this series going in any of several different directions, so the question is: What is Waid ultimately trying to accomplish with this story? We’ll see.

The art is quite good, Jorge Molina’s style feeling a bit like Oliver Coipel’s, while Karl Kesel’s inks give it a little more depth and form. The excellent art on Brubaker’s Cap run is a tough act to follow, but these guys do a pretty good job of evoking that feel while having a slightly more superheroic style.

With a new Squadron Supreme hardcover collection out this month, a new generation could discover the late Mark Gruenwald’s magnum opus. On the other hand, it costs $75, so that new generation might not be able to afford it, but us old fogeys enjoy getting a nice repackaging of this story.

It is important to put the book in perspective, though: When this series originally came out, it was contemporary with DC’s 50th anniversary series Crisis on Infinite Earths as well as (at its end) The Dark Knight Returns, and came near the end of the Jim Shooter era at Marvel. It predated Alan Moore’s Watchmen by a few years, and covered similar ground: Superheroes who come to dominate their world. But Mark Gruenwald was working with characters – and within a framework – that still saw them as Justice League-type heroes, flawed in the Marvel sense but essentially heroic. The theme of the series was one of characters doing what they believe is right, in the selfless way that comic book heroes do, but disagreeing with what needs to be done in the wake of a national disaster. While there’s plenty of carnage, betrayal, and death in the series, but it feels tame compared to series that followed it.

Still, it’s quite a good series, dealing with its characters and their differences honestly, especially as various wrenches get through into their plans to save America by instituting a utopian program, even as one former member assembles a team to bring them down. While I’d say it’s not quite as good as Gruenwald’s earlier series, Hawkeye, it’s clearly the one he’s going to be remembered for. The art is also some of the best at Marvel for its era, with the quirky pencils by Bob Hall in the early issues, and the much slicker, more mainstream-Marvel Paul Ryan in the later ones.

Reading it again today, I’d say it’s biggest flaw is that it lacks a denouement: Some individual issues end abruptly (like an issue which ends with the Whizzer thinking, “How can any of them ever trust me again?”, a thought which is ignored for the rest of the series), and the finale of the 12-issue limited series involves a big battle royale between the two sides, but very little examination of why the characters choose the course they do once the battle is over. It feels shallow. The sequel graphic novel, “Death of a Universe”, involves yet more devastation, some of it without meaning (such as one hero who dies just as the mission to save the world is literally taking off), and with a transformative ending which also ends too abruptly. There’s been so much change throughout this series, and no real effort to show how the world assimilates it.

Ultimately the biggest disappointment in the series is that this is all there is, and it feels like there should have been a little bit more. (Later Squadron stories have very little resemblance to those in this volume, although Kurt Busiek tried to evoke Gruenwald’s Squadron when they appeared in his early 2000s Avengers run.) But it laid the groundwork for stories like Watchmen even as it became resoundingly eclipsed by them, and it’s worth reading for that historical context as well as being an interesting take on mainstream superheroes which has not been often attempted in quite the same way.

This Week’s Haul

  • Action Comics #894, by Paul Cornell & Pete Woods (DC)
  • Justice Society of America #44, by Marc Guggenheim & Scott Kolins (DC)
  • Madame Xanadu #28, by Matt Wagner & Marian Churchland (DC/Vertigo)
  • Time Masters: Vanishing Point #4 of 6, by Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • Wonder Woman #604, by J. Michael Straczynski, Don Kramer, Eduardo Pansica & Jay Leisten (DC)
  • Zatanna #6, by Paul Dini & Jesus Saiz (DC)
  • Captain America #611, by Ed Brubaker & Daniel Acuña (Marvel)
  • Fantastic Four #584, by Jonathan Hickman & Steve Epting (Marvel)
  • Incognito: Bad Influences #1 of 6, by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips (Marvel/Icon)
  • Incorruptible #11, by Mark Waid & Marcio Takara (Boom)
  • Hellboy/Beasts of Burden: Sacrifice #1, by Evan Dorkin, Mike Mignola & Jill Thompson (Dark Horse)
  • Dynamo 5: Sins of the Father #5 of 5, by Jat Faerber & Júlio Brilha (Image Comics)
This month’s Action Comics has gotten a lot of press because it features a rare appearance by a Neil Gaiman character – in this case, Death – in a mainstream DC Universe title. Word is that Gaiman helped script her appearance, although oddly the character doesn’t really “feel” like the Death from Gaiman’s Sandman: She feels a little too much like a teenager, and a little too vague and mysterious than the character we’ve seen before. Yes yes, the whole joke about Death is that she’s a cheerful teenage girl doing this somewhat melancholy job, but the point is that it feels like her portrayal here misses the mark. Whether or not Gaiman wrote her, it feels like someone else. Not that what we have here is unlikeable, it just feels off.

Though Pete Woods does do a boffo job of drawing her.

What of the story itself? Lex Luthor has become so hard-headed these days that it’s basically a case of his irresistible force meeting Death’s immovable object – and she prevails, of course. It’s entertaining, but unfortunately the illumination it shines on Luthor’s character is that he’s pretty one-dimensional these days: Rather than the monomania about Superman that the silver age Luthor had, now he’s got a monomania about acquiring power. It’s unfortunate because it makes me a little more pessimistic that Luthor can really carry the title for much longer, unless Paul Cornell makes him a more nuanced figure.

Speaking of books I’m pessimistic about, the new JSA creative team arrives this month, and the results are not pretty.

I must admit I’m not really a fan of Scott Kolins’ art style these days: The overuse of gray tones, mixed with the painterly coloring job that accompanies it just feels overly rendered for the fairly straightforward books he’s illustrated. Honestly I liked the work he did on his run on The Flash with Geoff Johns a decade a ago better: Stylized, but with more interesting linework.

Marc Guggenheim’s story, for me, got a reaction of, “What, this again?” Jay Garrick – the original Flash – is considering retirement, to become mayor of a small city. An immensely powerful individual shows up to threaten that city, kicks the JSA’s ass until they get it together to put him down, but the victory is pyrrhic. The downer tone continues the feeling that Bill Willingham brought to the book, and I didn’t think it worked then, either. And it seems like we’re constantly seeing the golden age JSAers consider retiring, or coming out of retirement, or whatever. The whole issue felt tremendously manipulative and it was difficult to care about any of it, because it felt like the writer didn’t really understand or care about the characters.

Honestly I’m not sure why I’m even buying the book these days, as the team has really not been worth much since most of the golden age members were killed off in the 90s. It’s a sad thing when Geoff Johns’ run on the book looks like the good old days, because they really weren’t much good. With half a year left until issue #50, I’ll likely stick around that long to see if Guggenheim has something interesting planned for the landmark, but I think that’ll be it for me.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips bring us the first issue of the sequel to Incognito, a series I struggled enjoying at first, but which won me over completely in the final issue. This issue takes a step back from that last issue, being perhaps a little too cynical. It also feels like it’s treading on ground Brubaker previously covered in his outstanding series Sleeper (also with Phillips).

So that’s all a little disappointing, but Brubaker is too good a writer to let that keep him down: Zack Overkill is still trying to figure out his purpose in life now that he knows where he came from, and now that he’s working for a superspy-type organization. He has a tragic encounter from a figure from his past (well, not quite his past, but, well, you’ll see), and then gets assigned to infiltrate a villainous organization.

Incognito has struggled to make Zack someone the viewer can really feel for, but it mostly makes up for it in action, suspense, and clever plots. It’s probably the weakest of the Brubaker/Phillips books because of this character deficit, but it’s still quite good and decidedly different from most other superhero comics. If you enjoy a little pulp and noir in your action stories, check it out.

Astro City: The Dark Age

Astro City:
The Dark Age

The Dark Age is the longest Astro City story to date, running 16 issues plus a prologue (now collected in books one and two) – more than twice as long as any earlier story. Chronicling the era in Kurt Busiek’s creation from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s, the story has some interesting backstory: First, when it started running back in 2005, I recall it was heralded as the story that would reveal what happened to the Silver Agent, who was one of Astro City’s greatest heroes back in the day, but whose fate left the city ashamed of its behavior. Second – and this didn’t come out until later – Busiek had originally pitched The Dark Age as a sequel to his seminal series with Alex Ross, Marvels, and ended up reworking it for Astro City instead, later writing a different sequel to Marvels (Eye of the Camera).

There are some spoilers below, so if you want to read the whole thing with every little surprise, then I suggest doing so first. But the story is so sprawling that there is plenty I won’t reveal even if you do forge onwards.

The prologue takes place in 1959, where two children, Royal and Charles Williams, witness a fight between the Honor Guard and a high-tech gang named Pyramid. The younger one, Charles, is shown stealing an apple, but the pair are shamed later when they encounter the Black Badge, one of the few black superheroes. The pair go home to their family, and we learn only later that that evening, in the aftermath of the big battle, that their parents are killed when the Silver Agent pursues a Pyramid agent through their building.

The bulk of the story takes place in four parts, each keyed by one of the four seasons. Summer, 1972, sees Charles having grown to become a policeman, while Royal is now a small-time crook. Viet Nam is raging, a crazy variety of heroes are showing up (including the Apollo Eleven, human spacemen who now resemble aliens), and the Blue Knight is stalking and executing criminals. Royal and Charles barely speak to one another until Royal is tagged for execution by the Knight. Meanwhile, the Silver Agent is arrested for murdering a super villain and is sentenced to death. The sentence is carried out at the end of this part – at the same time the Silver Agent is seen saving the city from an enemy of the First Family.

Part two, Fall, 1976, shows how the city has gotten darker and more dangerous in the years since the Agent’s execution (symbolizing the end of the silver age of heroes): Villains turned heroes, heroes turned vigilantes, or tortured by inner demons. Charles has married a gold-digger, and she’s constantly pushing him to get “on the take” on the force, like his partner and several others, but Charles refuses. Royal hooks up with one of the underworld lords in the city thanks to his cool head and clear thinking under pressure, and learns that his boss has called in Pyramid to help. He realizes after a while that the Pyramid liaison is the man who killed his parents. It all comes to a head at the end of the chapter, when a heroine’s powers go awry causing chaos in the city, the Silver Agent shows up to save the day, and Royal has to make a decision to save Charles’ life.

Winter, 1982, is filled with dark events, but it focuses mainly on Charles and Royal putting their differences behind them to pursue their parents’ killer: Charles becomes a member of the international peacekeeping force E.A.G.L.E., while Royal infiltrates Pyramid, who are interested in capturing the Apollo Eleven to tap the power of their unified entity, the Incarnate. The pair are right in the middle of the final showdown between Pyramid and the Honor Guard, which goes wrong when a reckless hero fires a powerful weapon at the possessed Incarnate in order to destroy him, which rends a hole in the fabric of spacetime.

Spring, 1984, shows the Williams brothers as having put together a collection of high-tech equipment to pursue their foe, hounding him again and again but never quite catching him. They encounter a number of bizarre heroes, while their quarry feels cornered and makes a leap to gain powers himself, succeeding but at great cost, The brothers confront him in the final issue with the help of the Silver Agent, who arrives to seal the rift from part three, but the showdown is bittersweet for Royal and Charles.

The story ends with an epilogue in which the dark age comes to an end with the appearance of the Samaritan, and where we learn what happened to Charles and Royal.

The Dark Age is a big, sprawling story chronicling over a decade in the history of Astro City, a period which mirrors the explosion of diversity in superhero comics of the 1970s, as well as the darkening of those comics as not only did heroes change and get weirder (the new X-Men, and depowered Wonder Woman), but DC and Marvel experimented more with non-superhero books, especially horror titles. The decade seemed to have few keynote series (sure, the X-Men are lauded today but they weren’t really big until the early 80s), any of the creators of the big Marvel books of the 60s had left, and small-press and creator-owned titles were starting to appear. It was a weird decade, and I think that’s what Busiek is getting at in the almost-anything-goes nature of the heroes and villains in Astro City in this story.

The problem is that the magnitude of the setting makes the story feel less focused than past stories, and the setting – which has always been as much a character in Astro City as the people themselves – feels too diffuse, no elements given enough screen time to really satisfy. This is true even of the Silver Agent thread: Even though he’s integral to the progress of the story, what we see is still more tantalizing than satisfying, and at the end we feel like we’ve learned a little more, but not nearly enough. (The rest of the Agent’s story is being filled in via the 2-part specials, the first of which came out last week. But still, that didn’t really help The Dark Age, of which my frustration over the Agent’s part was merely exemplary of my frustration with other little pieces we saw.)

Busiek was consistent in saying that The Dark Age is the story of Royal and Charles Williams, and while it’s true that much of the focus lay on them, it got spread around a lot too. And the problem with them is that they don’t number among the most interesting characters we’ve seen in Astro City. I can’t say that they’re ciphers, but their story arc just ended up being disappointing. I think the problem came mid-way through the series, after the brothers had essentially cut ties with the police and the underworld in order to pursue the killer of their parents. Normally leaving your life behind to pursue your own goals would be a defining moment, but instead it feels like they become less men than just overriding drives, making them less interesting to follow. I think to some degree this is the point of their evolution, but in the climax things just abruptly come to an end, and while it’s clearly frustrating to the Williams brothers how things turn out, it’s also a letdown to the reader, where it’s not clear what the dramatic point of it all was.

To boil it down even more, ultimately the story is more that of Royal than of Charles. Charles essentially “grows up” at the very beginning, in the prologue, then he becomes a cop, and is put in an untenable situation and is forced essentially to regress because everything he’s believed in has been torn down. His arc is especially unsatisfying because there isn’t the corresponding build-up at the climax making him into a new mature person; he’s just left dangling (and the epilogue doesn’t really do justice to him, either). Royal has a more traditional arc, of being a crook who finds redemption by helping his brother find purpose after he leaves the police, and then helping his brother see what their quest for vengeance has turned them into. It’s not a bad arc, really, but it feels so understated, so overwhelmed by the other elements in the story, even up to the climax, that it’s not enough to really build the meaning of the story around.

To be fair, one of the big frustrations with The Dark Age is that the series came out very gradually over about five years, which meant it was difficult to really care about it when you’re in part 10 of 16 and it’s not clear how long it will be until the next issue arrives. I re-read the whole thing after the final part came out, and while it holds up better on re-reading, it’s still nowhere near as good as earlier long-form stories in the series (of which Confession is in my opinion the gold standard). There’s too much… and yet not enough of any one (or two or three) things.

Fundamentally, I think the problem is that The Dark Age really did turn out to be about the age and not about the characters. Confession and The Tarnished Angel are both unequivocally about their protagonists, and Busiek throws in characters and background and situations and history as needs dictate. The climax of Confession suffers a little from not going into some of the background of its players (E.A.G.L.E., and the other heroes who join in the fight) enough, and The Tarnished Angel has an awkward twist in the middle before coming back to the main story, but both largely stay focused on their main arc. The Dark Age runs here and runs there, comes back to visit the main characters, then covers some more territory, and keeps going back to show how dark everything’s gotten.

I haven’t said much about the art, and that’s because Brent Anderson is one of the most consistent – and consistently good – artists in comics today, so if you’re familiar with his work on the series in the past, then you have a good idea what you’ll be getting here. He’s not especially flashy, and his work doesn’t gosh-wow me the way George Pérez’s or Jerry Ordway’s does, but you have to give him props in that he draws both the heroes and the ordinary folks, the fantastic landscapes and the mundane cityscapes, and pulls it all together into a coherent visual whole. The book would be a very different thing without him, with someone else on the art chores.

In the end I admit some of my disappointment in The Dark Age is that it was very ambitious and didn’t really achieve its ambitions, to my mind, and also that its emphasis (the Williams brothers rather than the Silver Agent) wasn’t what I’d been hoping to read. But I think it had some real problems in focus and storytelling, too.