Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
She-Hulk is just a joy to read. That's because it's a celebratory comic, a big, bright, fun-loving look at everything great about comics, superheroes, and the titular character in particular. Oh, and also lawyers, though the series does a pretty good job of talking about what's terrible about them, too. The book only had 12 issues before being canceled, but in that time it told several awesome, amusing, off-kilter stories, including one about the mysterious Blue File that ran all throughout the title from the debut to the finale. And though this isn't the normal format for a Dearly Departed column (which I haven't written a new one of in almost a year-and-a-half) I think that maybe the best way to dissect She-Hulk is to take it arc by arc, and then wrap up with some more macro thoughts at the end.
The first two issues are sort of each their own thing, but also very clearly work together as a two-part story, the tale of how Jennifer Walters goes from losing her corporate law job to starting and staffing her own practice. It's an awesome introduction to the character and the comic. Jen's resourcefulness and self-assuredness are heavily highlighted right up top, and the core cast is rounded out with the always amusing Hellcat Patsy Walker, and the brand-new, almost entirely inscrutable Angie Huang. The trio works very well together, balancing each other out with different levels of seriousness, areas of expertise, and kinds of intelligence. Plus Javier Pulido's poppy, laid-back, standout style, filled in with Muntsa Vicente's equally poppy and confident colors, gives the series a refreshingly fun look that brightens and bolsters the narratives. This is a hopeful, believe-in-yourself type comic all the way through, from She-Hulk's optimistic self-starterism to Angie's mysterious hyper-competence to Pulido & Vicente's dynamic artwork.
The next two issues are about Jen taking on Dr. Doom's son Kristoff as a client. Kristoff is seeking asylum so he won't be forced to rule Latveria in his father's shadow, and Jen battles tooth-and-nail to make it happen. She even wins in court, but of course Dr. Doom doesn't give a shit about that and immediately kidnaps his son right back. So Jen goes to Latveria to save Kristoff, and ends up using her sharp negotiation skills to make Doom see why it's actually in his best interests to give Kristoff the freedom to be his own man. What I love about this arc is that Jen gets to be an awesome lawyer, then an awesome superhero, and then just an all-around awesome person. We see her at her best in several different kinds of situations, all related to a single case, displaying how capable and impressive she really is.
She-Hulk #5-6 (I promise they are not all two-issue narratives, just the first half of the series, plus the last two issues, so...everything but #7-10) is a storyline titled "Blue" that's all about She-Hulk and company trying to figure out what's up with the mysterious Blue File that Jen found randomly in a box some time before this title even began. The file is connected to a case that names Jen and several other super-people as the targets of a lawsuit by a man named Georg Saywitz, but Jen has no memory of George or the case itself, so the existence of the Blue File is something of a nagging anomaly. The Blue File is ultimately the central problem of this entire 12-issue run, so it doesn't get fully resolved in these two issues, but Jen and her crew do interview several of the other people named in the suit, like Tigra, Shocker, and Nightwatch, and discover that discussing the details of the file acts as some kind of weird subconscious trigger that makes people go crazy and attack everyone and try to hurt themselves. Because of that danger, She-Hulk decides to drop the investigation, even when Angie shows up with what she claims is vital information. It's a weird moment, actually, when Jen shoots down Angie, because she's overly aggressive and then immediately seems to forget the whole thing. Clearly, there's more to this Blue File than meets the eye, and if you read this arc knowing how She-Hulk ends, it's pretty incredible how well Soule hints at who's behind the Blue File without giving it away. Ditto Ron Wimberly, the artist for "Blue." I know that, at the time, there were people who didn't like Wimberly's art on this book, but I think he was the perfect fill-in artist for Pulido. His work has the same kind of playful but abundant energy as Pulido's, so the voice of the comic maintains without wavering, even though stylistically the two artists are quite distinct.
Issue #7 is an Ant-Man team-up, where he, She-Hulk, and Hellcat shrink down to locate and save another genius scientist who shrunk himself and then went missing. It's an amusing, freebie one-shot, a little diversion after the major development of the main plot in "Blue." Also Pulido and Vicente return, and do a marvelous job with the pint-sized adventure, particularly the ant swarm that She-Hulk and Hellcat have to tangle with.
The best story in the series comes in issues #8-10, "The Good Old Days." It's She-Hulk vs. Daredevil in court, and the focus of the trial is Captain America. I wrote about one of the things I enjoyed in this story—the use of continuity—on PopMatters, but there are other things to admire as well. It's a solid courtroom drama, and an exceptional study of what makes Captain America what he is. It also adds an interesting wrinkle to the story of why he is what he is, without in any way undoing or challenging the established facts of his history. Jen gets to be a hero for a hero, by using skills that most of her super-peers don't have. There's also a nice message in there about the flexibility of the truth and how even without lying, people can tell the same story in wildly different ways. It's about perspective, and context, and how hugely important both of those things are to consider whenever you hear anyone describe any experience. These are relevant points to make, especially these days, and they're made subtly and indirectly but are still impossible to miss.
Finally, issues #11-12 bring things to a close by revealing the whole story behind the Blue File. She-Hulk #11 is actually just an issue-long fight between the threesome of She-Hulk, Hellcat, and Angie and the duo of Titania and Volcana. The latter pair was hired by Nightwatch to scare Jen and her team off of researching the Blue File, which Angie had secretly been doing all along, despite Jen's instructions to let it go. Turns out Angie uncovered the truth, so after Titania and Volcana's attack, Angie tells Jen that Nightwatch is the real enemy, forcing his hand. She-Hulk #12, then, is the explanation of how the Blue File came to be, and also the final defeat of Nightwatch. The story is that Nightwatch used to be a villain named Nighteater, who hired Shocker, Vibro, and Dr. Druid to help him cast an uber-powerful spell that would make him into a hero in the memories of everyone in the world. Effectively, every past heroic deed Nightwatch supposedly performed is in reality a false memory created by this spell. He erased his past as a bad guy and replaced it with a fake one where he was always a good guy. Also, he wiped an entire town out of existence, save for George Saywitz, hence the lawsuit. Then Nightwatch retired, able to live his days out in peace, relatively unknown compared to many heroes, but still respected and adored by the public enough to get by. He seems like the ideal character for this kind of retcon, in that he's never been that popular or major a figure in the Marvel canon. Not too many feathers get ruffled if you make Nightwatch into a villain, and it fits so perfectly with everything else we've seen around the Blue File, especially Nightwatch's earlier appearance, so it's a very strong conclusion.
All through this book, She-Hulk is a badass, a hero in every sense, and a hilarious, captivating protagonist. It's everything you want out of the title character of a mainstream superhero book and more, because she's also a lawyer who's actually decent, honest, and admirable. I'd never had a strong opinion about her before reading this, nor even all that much experience with her, but I think of myself as a firmly devoted fan now. Her inclusion on any team is going to make me all the more likely to follow them, and the next time she gets a solo series, I'll be giving it a try pretty much no matter who the creative team is.
I'm not sure how I feel about Angie. I loved her as the stoic, strange, brilliant super-paralegal, but I'm not wild about characters who have loosely defined powers and always seem to have exactly what they need to solve every new problem they encounter. Over the course of these 12 issues, Angie Jedi mind tricks a few people, comes back suddenly and inexplicably from being shot to death, mentally takes control of Volcana's powers, and figures out Nightwatch is the primary baddie without us seeing how she does it. Also her pet monkey Hei Hei, with whom she clearly has some kind of telepathic bond, grows to be larger than a man, sprouts wings, and seems to develop some kind of super-strength. I don't doubt that Charles Soule knows Angie and Hei Hei's backstory and the limitations of/explanations for their abilities, but within She-Hulk it's all one big question mark, and considering how important Angie's contributions were, I would've preferred some more insight into who she is and what she can (or can't) do.
The best dialogue in the whole book is actually a monologue from Shocker, delivered to She-Hulk after she chases him down: "Lady, all I know about you is that you're tough as hell. Guys like me, we got a list of people like you. Like a rating system. You got your Daredevils, your Iron Fists---those guys, you fight. Maybe you get lucky, or maybe you're actually good enough to beat 'em. Now any Hulks---lady, dude, red, green, purple---you see a Hulk, you run. As you saw. Thors, too." This tickles me every time, as does She-Hulk's protest that there's just one Thor, and Shocker's reply that, no, everyone like Volstagg and Valkyrie and Beta Ray Bill are Thors, too. A wonderful conversation that can only take place in a superhero reality.
I think that's all I have on this. It's a phenomenal comicbook, and not just for a Marvel superhero series. It's good all over, and it fits a whole lot of high-quality content into its 12 installments. She-Hulk was never a favorite of mine, Pulido I only knew from his subpar issues of Hawkeye, and the few things of Soule's I'd read before this I had pretty strongly disliked. On this project, though, all three of them were unexpectedly fantastic, as were Vicente and Wimberly, Hellcat and Nightwatch, and all the various guest stars.
Showing posts with label Dearly Departed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dearly Departed. Show all posts
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Dearly Departed: Ex Sanguine
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
I'm not really much of a vampire guy, nor am I passionately anti-vampire. Vampire stories are a subgenre of horror (duh), and I adore good horror, so a well-done vampire tale appeals to me as much as the next guy. But I'm not naturally drawn to vampires like I am, say, superheroes. The concept of blood-drinking undead immortals doesn't do much for me in-and-of itself. Similarly, romantic comedies are not what I would call, "my bag." Speaking broadly, I prefer comedy to drama most of the time, because I like to study it, to dig into a given joke or string of jokes and see what makes them work or fail. Romantic comedies, however, are often hair-pullingly formulaic, or they have one-note characters, or both. So rather than being interesting subjects of observation and analysis, they're commonly predictable to the point of their third acts feeling unnecessary.
Tim Seeley and Joshua Scott Emmons' Ex Sanguine is 100% a vampire romantic comedy, or at any rate that's how I'd describe it, yet it is nevertheless a comicbook series that I enjoy immensely. It keeps me guessing while it has me laughing, takes a few truly dark and disturbing turns, and ends with its central couple mutually agreeing to go their separate ways, rather than winding up happily ever after in one another's arms. That conclusion isn't the only way in which it bucks trends. Seeley's design for his star vampire Saul is unorthodox, veering toward werewolf aesthetics, with giant canine teeth rather than the more humble fangs typically seen. Saul's co-star/romantic interest, Ashley, is more classic in her appearance—busty blonde diner waitress to a T—but she's also a serial killer, which gives her a twisted sense of humor and an unapologetic arrogance that are less common traits for the leads of love stories, especially women. The two make a bizarre but intriguing couple, attracted to each other mostly through their shared bloodlust, Saul's coming from an actual physical need and Ashley's more of an overwhelming compulsion. Though they're not very nice or good people, their romance is fascinating, and it makes them relatable enough to cheer for despite their murderous activities.
I'm not really much of a vampire guy, nor am I passionately anti-vampire. Vampire stories are a subgenre of horror (duh), and I adore good horror, so a well-done vampire tale appeals to me as much as the next guy. But I'm not naturally drawn to vampires like I am, say, superheroes. The concept of blood-drinking undead immortals doesn't do much for me in-and-of itself. Similarly, romantic comedies are not what I would call, "my bag." Speaking broadly, I prefer comedy to drama most of the time, because I like to study it, to dig into a given joke or string of jokes and see what makes them work or fail. Romantic comedies, however, are often hair-pullingly formulaic, or they have one-note characters, or both. So rather than being interesting subjects of observation and analysis, they're commonly predictable to the point of their third acts feeling unnecessary.
Tim Seeley and Joshua Scott Emmons' Ex Sanguine is 100% a vampire romantic comedy, or at any rate that's how I'd describe it, yet it is nevertheless a comicbook series that I enjoy immensely. It keeps me guessing while it has me laughing, takes a few truly dark and disturbing turns, and ends with its central couple mutually agreeing to go their separate ways, rather than winding up happily ever after in one another's arms. That conclusion isn't the only way in which it bucks trends. Seeley's design for his star vampire Saul is unorthodox, veering toward werewolf aesthetics, with giant canine teeth rather than the more humble fangs typically seen. Saul's co-star/romantic interest, Ashley, is more classic in her appearance—busty blonde diner waitress to a T—but she's also a serial killer, which gives her a twisted sense of humor and an unapologetic arrogance that are less common traits for the leads of love stories, especially women. The two make a bizarre but intriguing couple, attracted to each other mostly through their shared bloodlust, Saul's coming from an actual physical need and Ashley's more of an overwhelming compulsion. Though they're not very nice or good people, their romance is fascinating, and it makes them relatable enough to cheer for despite their murderous activities.
Saul and Ashley meet because he's a daily visitor to the diner where she works. Another regular customer is killed, and the F.B.I. suspect Saul, which understandably upsets him. As a vampire tying to hide his identity, having federal agents knocking on his door is perhaps the worst thing that could happen. Though he's innocent of this particular murder, he still doesn't want anyone digging into his life and finding out what he is. Shortly after his run-in with the feds, Saul discovers that Ashley is the real murderer. Well...she decides to reveal herself to him, is a more accurate way of describing it. It's not like Saul sets off to clear his name and uncovers Ashley's secret. On the contrary, she catches him showing his true face to a man he's about to devour, and decides that since he's a literal monster, it's safe to tell him about the monster she has inside. At first, Saul gets mad at Ashley for all the attention she's brought his way, and threatens to do something about it if she doesn't find a new hunting ground. But Ashley never takes Saul's posturing seriously, realizing right away that they'll both be happier if they work together instead of against each other. When Saul gets arrested for one of Ashley's kills, she's brazen enough to alibi him, and thus begins their relationship.
What I find so interesting about the two of them, and a big part of what attracts them to one another, is how casual they are about killing. When they invade a man's home and murder him together, it's a fun, flirty date, full of getting-to-know-you conversation and ending in blood-soaked sex. They can talk about murder like they'd talk about the weather, and when they do argue, it's over the relative morality of Saul's motives (hunger and survival) vs. Ashley's (sport and personal gain). But beyond this particular hobby, there's not a great deal they have in common, which causes friction between them as a couple. Saul is low-energy, logical, and detached. Having already lived several lives over innumerable years, he doesn't let himself get overly invested in the concerns of the world. What he's interested in is self-preservation, and he has no real ambition beyond that. Ashley is young and active and passionate. She's on a mission to leave behind a legacy, to be remembered forever as the prolific killer she is. She loves to take risks, he prefers to play it safe. She's flashy when she kills, and he tries to stay discreet. They're opposites in many ways, which, again, may be part of what brings them together, but is also what ultimately drives them apart.
Ashley and Saul split up amicably after killing the two F.B.I. agents who've been hunting her down (and have never stopped suspecting Saul). Those agents have their own thread within this series, because one of them, Agent Quinn, has a history with vampires, having been kidnapped and tortured by one a few years ago. Or so she believes. Her partner, Agent Franks, eventually explains to her that it was just a regular human being who kept her captive, and that the stress of the situation has transformed him into a monster in her memory. Which leads to a grimly funny twist at the end of the series, when only minutes after Quinn learns that the vampire from her past wasn't real, an actual vampire is involved in her death. At the same time, Quinn's former trauma is the aspect of this book I struggle with the most, because it's hard to believe that someone so completely convinced that she'd been the victim of a vampire would be allowed back in the field by the F.B.I. Aren't there like psych evaluations and other such processes for that kind of thing? Not that this is a strictly realistic comic, but Franks and Quinn are certainly the most grounded characters, so I'm not sure why she gets to be an active agent when she so clearly hasn't recovered yet. Franks keeps a pretty close eye on her, and is a talented, thoughtful, capable, accomplished agent, so I guess the idea is that with him at her side she'll be ok. But Quinn has a totally inappropriate freakout during their first visit to Saul's apartment, and gets gradually worse from that point until she kills someone herself in an attempt to frame Saul. So she's definitely not fit for duty, and it not only gets her killed but Franks as well.
As the only truly innocent member of the cast (by which I mean he never murders anybody) Franks is arguably the hero of this story, but the reader isn't necessarily supposed to be on his side. Saul is our point-of-view character and narrator, so the man who's out to get him isn't shown in an especially positive light. That's another aspect of this title I like: there's no one to love and no one to hate. Saul and Ashley are despicable people, but their romance is the heart of the narrative, so the audience naturally warms to them as they warm to one another. Franks and Quinn, meanwhile, are admirably trying to bring a serial killer to justice, but between Franks' cold professionalism and Quinn's obvious instability, it's hard to see either one of them as all that likable. Also, they get considerably less stage time than Ashley or Saul. My point is, the protagonists are morally abhorrent, and their opponents are federal agents trying to do their jobs, so there's really no one to fully support or root against. It's just a good story, able to make us see the good in heartless killers and the bad in earnest cops.
There are several other things Seeley and Emmons do in this story (they write the scripts together, with Seeley also handling the art) that set it apart, but the one that sticks out most is how they approach the introductions/explorations of Saul's magical abilities. Rather than having Saul tell the reader directly what he can do, or even lay it all out for Ashley once they get together, his powers are introduced a little bit at a time as the story calls for it. Sometimes he does explain something to Ashley, like how metal taints blood so he can't feed off of it, but only when necessary for her understanding. It's never wedged into his dialogue where it doesn't belong for the reader's sake, and there are plenty of examples of Saul doing something uniquely vampiric without any explanation at all. He can change his appearance (which is how he hides his mouthful of terrifying teeth), teleport, block bullets with some kind of black energy, and a handful of other tricks that, while we know they're all powered by blood, we don't get an in-depth breakdown of how they work or even what they are. Saul is what he is, already so old and established by the time this narrative begins that he's effortlessly comfortable and talented with his various skills. He doesn't talk about them, because what's the point, he just uses them as needed, and the audience is given enough credit from the creators to figure out what's happening on our own.
Seeley's art is wonderful, very full of life even in a story so riddled with death. All of his characters are fiercely expressive, able to display a full range of emotions without losing the core of their character. Ashley is always fun-loving and cocky, even when she's scared. Saul's always stern and brooding, Quinn nervous and driven, Franks worrisome and focused. No matter what they're doing, these fundamental traits shine through in everyone's facial expressions and body language, so that the cast is visually and emotionally consistent throughout the story.
There's a lot of blood in Ex Sanguine (surprise surprise) and Seeley doesn't hold back, but he doesn't let it overpower his panels, either. There's an excess of gore because there's an excess of violence, but in any given scene the volume of blood spilt is reasonable. The violence itself is also right down the middle, intense and fast-moving enough to always be gripping, but never unrealistically graphic. Even Saul isn't pulling any ridiculous action stunts, despite his superhuman talents, because that's not the kind of book this is. Fights are swift and brutal, with severe consequences for all involved, even the victors. When people are wounded, they don't recover all of a sudden and strike back. Usually they die soon after, but even when they survive, their injuries are felt profoundly. Having such realistic violence and pain adds to the horror of the narrative, while Saul and Ashly's callousness about the damage they inflict heightens the comedy. So both sides of the equation get a bump from how Seeley draws violence.
I'm leaving out a boatload of plot details in favor of more general descriptions of the cast's personalities and the creators' storytelling methods, and also to avoid spoiling everything, but believe me when I tell you there's a lot more going on than I'm going to touch on in this column. Ashley's endgame and how it relates to her father, Saul's past lives that he can barely remember, the plot-thickening surprise of the final two pages, and many other odds and ends have been excluded here. Seeley and Emmons are doing a lot, maybe even a bit too much in places, but on the whole these are a tightly-packed five issues. It's a vampire story that never reminds me of any other vampire stories, and a romance story that's just as unique. For two such overplayed genres as those, being able to seamlessly combine them and do something new with each is impressive as hell.
What I find so interesting about the two of them, and a big part of what attracts them to one another, is how casual they are about killing. When they invade a man's home and murder him together, it's a fun, flirty date, full of getting-to-know-you conversation and ending in blood-soaked sex. They can talk about murder like they'd talk about the weather, and when they do argue, it's over the relative morality of Saul's motives (hunger and survival) vs. Ashley's (sport and personal gain). But beyond this particular hobby, there's not a great deal they have in common, which causes friction between them as a couple. Saul is low-energy, logical, and detached. Having already lived several lives over innumerable years, he doesn't let himself get overly invested in the concerns of the world. What he's interested in is self-preservation, and he has no real ambition beyond that. Ashley is young and active and passionate. She's on a mission to leave behind a legacy, to be remembered forever as the prolific killer she is. She loves to take risks, he prefers to play it safe. She's flashy when she kills, and he tries to stay discreet. They're opposites in many ways, which, again, may be part of what brings them together, but is also what ultimately drives them apart.
Ashley and Saul split up amicably after killing the two F.B.I. agents who've been hunting her down (and have never stopped suspecting Saul). Those agents have their own thread within this series, because one of them, Agent Quinn, has a history with vampires, having been kidnapped and tortured by one a few years ago. Or so she believes. Her partner, Agent Franks, eventually explains to her that it was just a regular human being who kept her captive, and that the stress of the situation has transformed him into a monster in her memory. Which leads to a grimly funny twist at the end of the series, when only minutes after Quinn learns that the vampire from her past wasn't real, an actual vampire is involved in her death. At the same time, Quinn's former trauma is the aspect of this book I struggle with the most, because it's hard to believe that someone so completely convinced that she'd been the victim of a vampire would be allowed back in the field by the F.B.I. Aren't there like psych evaluations and other such processes for that kind of thing? Not that this is a strictly realistic comic, but Franks and Quinn are certainly the most grounded characters, so I'm not sure why she gets to be an active agent when she so clearly hasn't recovered yet. Franks keeps a pretty close eye on her, and is a talented, thoughtful, capable, accomplished agent, so I guess the idea is that with him at her side she'll be ok. But Quinn has a totally inappropriate freakout during their first visit to Saul's apartment, and gets gradually worse from that point until she kills someone herself in an attempt to frame Saul. So she's definitely not fit for duty, and it not only gets her killed but Franks as well.
As the only truly innocent member of the cast (by which I mean he never murders anybody) Franks is arguably the hero of this story, but the reader isn't necessarily supposed to be on his side. Saul is our point-of-view character and narrator, so the man who's out to get him isn't shown in an especially positive light. That's another aspect of this title I like: there's no one to love and no one to hate. Saul and Ashley are despicable people, but their romance is the heart of the narrative, so the audience naturally warms to them as they warm to one another. Franks and Quinn, meanwhile, are admirably trying to bring a serial killer to justice, but between Franks' cold professionalism and Quinn's obvious instability, it's hard to see either one of them as all that likable. Also, they get considerably less stage time than Ashley or Saul. My point is, the protagonists are morally abhorrent, and their opponents are federal agents trying to do their jobs, so there's really no one to fully support or root against. It's just a good story, able to make us see the good in heartless killers and the bad in earnest cops.
There are several other things Seeley and Emmons do in this story (they write the scripts together, with Seeley also handling the art) that set it apart, but the one that sticks out most is how they approach the introductions/explorations of Saul's magical abilities. Rather than having Saul tell the reader directly what he can do, or even lay it all out for Ashley once they get together, his powers are introduced a little bit at a time as the story calls for it. Sometimes he does explain something to Ashley, like how metal taints blood so he can't feed off of it, but only when necessary for her understanding. It's never wedged into his dialogue where it doesn't belong for the reader's sake, and there are plenty of examples of Saul doing something uniquely vampiric without any explanation at all. He can change his appearance (which is how he hides his mouthful of terrifying teeth), teleport, block bullets with some kind of black energy, and a handful of other tricks that, while we know they're all powered by blood, we don't get an in-depth breakdown of how they work or even what they are. Saul is what he is, already so old and established by the time this narrative begins that he's effortlessly comfortable and talented with his various skills. He doesn't talk about them, because what's the point, he just uses them as needed, and the audience is given enough credit from the creators to figure out what's happening on our own.
Seeley's art is wonderful, very full of life even in a story so riddled with death. All of his characters are fiercely expressive, able to display a full range of emotions without losing the core of their character. Ashley is always fun-loving and cocky, even when she's scared. Saul's always stern and brooding, Quinn nervous and driven, Franks worrisome and focused. No matter what they're doing, these fundamental traits shine through in everyone's facial expressions and body language, so that the cast is visually and emotionally consistent throughout the story.
There's a lot of blood in Ex Sanguine (surprise surprise) and Seeley doesn't hold back, but he doesn't let it overpower his panels, either. There's an excess of gore because there's an excess of violence, but in any given scene the volume of blood spilt is reasonable. The violence itself is also right down the middle, intense and fast-moving enough to always be gripping, but never unrealistically graphic. Even Saul isn't pulling any ridiculous action stunts, despite his superhuman talents, because that's not the kind of book this is. Fights are swift and brutal, with severe consequences for all involved, even the victors. When people are wounded, they don't recover all of a sudden and strike back. Usually they die soon after, but even when they survive, their injuries are felt profoundly. Having such realistic violence and pain adds to the horror of the narrative, while Saul and Ashly's callousness about the damage they inflict heightens the comedy. So both sides of the equation get a bump from how Seeley draws violence.
I'm leaving out a boatload of plot details in favor of more general descriptions of the cast's personalities and the creators' storytelling methods, and also to avoid spoiling everything, but believe me when I tell you there's a lot more going on than I'm going to touch on in this column. Ashley's endgame and how it relates to her father, Saul's past lives that he can barely remember, the plot-thickening surprise of the final two pages, and many other odds and ends have been excluded here. Seeley and Emmons are doing a lot, maybe even a bit too much in places, but on the whole these are a tightly-packed five issues. It's a vampire story that never reminds me of any other vampire stories, and a romance story that's just as unique. For two such overplayed genres as those, being able to seamlessly combine them and do something new with each is impressive as hell.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Dearly Departed: Dark Avengers
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
I have't read that much Thunderbolts material. I love the concept of a series about vilains acting as heroes, so it's all on my list, and has been for a while. But I didn't actually start following the series until Jeff Parker had already been writing it for a while. So when the name of the book changed to Dark Avengers with issue #175 last year, I wasn't as bothered by it as some others seemed to be. I mean, I saw it for the weird, cheap attempt at boosting sales that it was, and I questioned the logic of bringing in a new team when the current roster was so awesome in Parker's hands, but I didn't have too much connection to the title itself. It is annoying that Marvel reused it for a brand new book with a totally unrelated team and concept just a few months later, especially since Dark Avengers only ran for about a year (sixteen issues, published slightly more frequently than once a month). But Parker made a lot of smart decisions when the time came to make the transition, so that the weird volume of Dark Avengers that now exists only as issues #175-190 is accessible to newcomers while still acting as a well-told finale to the larger Thunderbolts epic he was in the middle of telling when the title changed.
For one thing, he largely ignores that time travel tale in his first Dark Avengers issue in favor of focusing on Luke Cage as he's forced to lead the members of the new titular team. Then in the second installment, Parker switches back to the Thunderbolts who are lost in time, which might arguably be confusing for someone who only jumped on one issue prior and was expecting the next beat in the storyline set up there, but for those readers, there is issue #177. In that third chapter, Parker jumps back and forth between the two teams and time periods, demonstrating what his strategy will be moving forward from that point: even as he develops the plot and characters of the Dark Avengers, he will simultaneously continue to tell his Thunderbolts narrative until, ultimately and somewhat brilliantly, those two stories collide and become one and the same. I suppose three issues could be called too long to finalize a mission statement for a new series, but "new" is a relative term, and in this case, it doesn't really apply. Parker had the unenviable task of establishing the book as something fresh while at the same time maintaining some semblance of what it used to be for the readers who were already fans. So if he took a bit of time to pull that off, I think that's more than forgivable and, in fact, even a bit impressive.
There's also a tremendous amount of built-in history when it comes to Luke Cage and the Dark Avengers anyway, the details of which I don't really know. Parker glosses over it so he can get to the meat and potatoes of the new story, but the long and short is that they've worked together before, and don't care for one another. It establishes a powerful mistrust between Cage and the team he is meant to be leading, and gives him a reason to bring in Skaar, son of Hulk, another character with an antagonistic relationship with the Dark Avengers since he used to be one but then betrayed them, leading to their incarceration. All of this past hatred is laid out in the opening issue, so that Parker can move on to the mission at hand without dwelling in the convoluted history of the Marvel Universe. And it gives him space to spend the next issue with the Thunderbolts, and subsequent issues with both groups, delivering a fast-paced and high-octane adventure to save the world that reaches across time and allows villains to be heroes.
The overarching storyline that ties together the first nine of these sixteen issues centers around the Dark Avengers being sent by the same government agency that was in charge of the Thunderbolts program (F.A.C.T.) to the newly-created nation of Sharzhad. Cage and Skaar are told that the mission is to retrieve a kidnapped operative named Wender, but in actuality Wender hasn't been captured, he escaped. He is a tool of the government, he and his twin brother, and the real goal is to use their energy-transference powers to sap Sharzhad and its wicked leader, Sultan Magus, of all power. Not a rescue operation, then, but an invasion/infiltration gig, and only the Dark Avengers know the truth of what their goals are. As with so many illicit government activities, things go awry, and so we see the Thunderbolts, stuck in a dystopian future, learn that the Dark Avengers will create a global catastrophe with their actions. This is how Parker bonds his disconnected threads.
It's also an excuse to make the Thunderbolts the bona fide heroes of this story, not a role they have necessarily played up to now. As criminals and career supervillains, they're more morally ambiguous in most of what they do, but for this particular arc, their agenda is unquestionably heroic. They are going to go back in time and prevent the Sharzhad cataclysm, putting their own lives very much at risk for the sake of the world at large.
And they do it, too. Showing up with mere minutes to spare, the Thunderbolts shut down the Sharzhad situation, though they accomplish that by stabbing Wender through the chest with Skaar's giant sword so, even as heroes, they're not the friendliest or noblest bunch. It's a delicious finale, bombastic and sometimes ridiculous, full of Parker's signature humor, and a fitting send-off for the Thunderbolts team. They return to their own time, get to literally prevent an apocalypse, and then disperse. After all, they're still technically criminals, as ridiculous as that seems in light of what they've done. So rather than stick around to take credit for the world-saving, they run off into uncertain but exciting futures. Not dissimilar from the final beat that the Dark Avengers also get, but that comes later on, and I will get to it in a minute.
Obviously the above is a brief and over-simplified summary of Dark Avengers' opening arc. There is an amazing amount of other shit that goes down: the Thunderbolts battle Dr. Doom in prehistoric and then modern times; Sultan Magus turns Skaar back into his human form and nearly kills him; Songbird and Mach V (the only Thunderbolts who aren't lost in time) spy on F.A.C.T. and discover what they're up to; Hank Pym makes contact with the Thunderbolts trapped in the future through some classic comicbook super-science; there's a whole fucked up world in that future run by clones of superheroes who battle against gangs of hideous, downtrodden mutants; and probably innumerable other bits and pieces I'm forgetting. Point being, Parker crams it all in without the narrative feeling overcrowded, and still finds a way to bring it all together and make it one cohesive whole. The level of effort and creativity he devotes to the book helps sell the reader on the Dark Avengers characters without giving them the full spotlight right away, and provides the outgoing Thunderbolts with an appropriately epic final escapade. It's exactly what Parker needed to do to make the switch from Thunderbolts to Dark Avengers, welcoming newcomers while respecting the established readership, and just generally writing some damn fine and funny comics to boot.
Once he has properly laid the old title and its cast to rest, Parker writes his only full-fledged Dark Avengers story arc with the remaining seven issues. Sadly, it is less wonderful, though still a good deal of fun. But because the book and cast are still pretty fresh, and this story takes place in an alternate reality, there is a lack of stakes that prevent this narrative from reaching greatness. To Parker's credit, he writes the story like it doesn't matter (but not like he doesn't care, which is an important distinction), keeping it light and action-packed. He revels in the freedom and some of the cliches of having an elseworlds setting, and I happen to be a bit of a sucker for that type of story, so in the end I still think of the latter half of Dark Avengers as successful and good. That it doesn't stack up against the storyline that preceded it is more praise for those issues than condemnation for these.
I have't read that much Thunderbolts material. I love the concept of a series about vilains acting as heroes, so it's all on my list, and has been for a while. But I didn't actually start following the series until Jeff Parker had already been writing it for a while. So when the name of the book changed to Dark Avengers with issue #175 last year, I wasn't as bothered by it as some others seemed to be. I mean, I saw it for the weird, cheap attempt at boosting sales that it was, and I questioned the logic of bringing in a new team when the current roster was so awesome in Parker's hands, but I didn't have too much connection to the title itself. It is annoying that Marvel reused it for a brand new book with a totally unrelated team and concept just a few months later, especially since Dark Avengers only ran for about a year (sixteen issues, published slightly more frequently than once a month). But Parker made a lot of smart decisions when the time came to make the transition, so that the weird volume of Dark Avengers that now exists only as issues #175-190 is accessible to newcomers while still acting as a well-told finale to the larger Thunderbolts epic he was in the middle of telling when the title changed.
For one thing, he largely ignores that time travel tale in his first Dark Avengers issue in favor of focusing on Luke Cage as he's forced to lead the members of the new titular team. Then in the second installment, Parker switches back to the Thunderbolts who are lost in time, which might arguably be confusing for someone who only jumped on one issue prior and was expecting the next beat in the storyline set up there, but for those readers, there is issue #177. In that third chapter, Parker jumps back and forth between the two teams and time periods, demonstrating what his strategy will be moving forward from that point: even as he develops the plot and characters of the Dark Avengers, he will simultaneously continue to tell his Thunderbolts narrative until, ultimately and somewhat brilliantly, those two stories collide and become one and the same. I suppose three issues could be called too long to finalize a mission statement for a new series, but "new" is a relative term, and in this case, it doesn't really apply. Parker had the unenviable task of establishing the book as something fresh while at the same time maintaining some semblance of what it used to be for the readers who were already fans. So if he took a bit of time to pull that off, I think that's more than forgivable and, in fact, even a bit impressive.
There's also a tremendous amount of built-in history when it comes to Luke Cage and the Dark Avengers anyway, the details of which I don't really know. Parker glosses over it so he can get to the meat and potatoes of the new story, but the long and short is that they've worked together before, and don't care for one another. It establishes a powerful mistrust between Cage and the team he is meant to be leading, and gives him a reason to bring in Skaar, son of Hulk, another character with an antagonistic relationship with the Dark Avengers since he used to be one but then betrayed them, leading to their incarceration. All of this past hatred is laid out in the opening issue, so that Parker can move on to the mission at hand without dwelling in the convoluted history of the Marvel Universe. And it gives him space to spend the next issue with the Thunderbolts, and subsequent issues with both groups, delivering a fast-paced and high-octane adventure to save the world that reaches across time and allows villains to be heroes.
The overarching storyline that ties together the first nine of these sixteen issues centers around the Dark Avengers being sent by the same government agency that was in charge of the Thunderbolts program (F.A.C.T.) to the newly-created nation of Sharzhad. Cage and Skaar are told that the mission is to retrieve a kidnapped operative named Wender, but in actuality Wender hasn't been captured, he escaped. He is a tool of the government, he and his twin brother, and the real goal is to use their energy-transference powers to sap Sharzhad and its wicked leader, Sultan Magus, of all power. Not a rescue operation, then, but an invasion/infiltration gig, and only the Dark Avengers know the truth of what their goals are. As with so many illicit government activities, things go awry, and so we see the Thunderbolts, stuck in a dystopian future, learn that the Dark Avengers will create a global catastrophe with their actions. This is how Parker bonds his disconnected threads.
It's also an excuse to make the Thunderbolts the bona fide heroes of this story, not a role they have necessarily played up to now. As criminals and career supervillains, they're more morally ambiguous in most of what they do, but for this particular arc, their agenda is unquestionably heroic. They are going to go back in time and prevent the Sharzhad cataclysm, putting their own lives very much at risk for the sake of the world at large.
And they do it, too. Showing up with mere minutes to spare, the Thunderbolts shut down the Sharzhad situation, though they accomplish that by stabbing Wender through the chest with Skaar's giant sword so, even as heroes, they're not the friendliest or noblest bunch. It's a delicious finale, bombastic and sometimes ridiculous, full of Parker's signature humor, and a fitting send-off for the Thunderbolts team. They return to their own time, get to literally prevent an apocalypse, and then disperse. After all, they're still technically criminals, as ridiculous as that seems in light of what they've done. So rather than stick around to take credit for the world-saving, they run off into uncertain but exciting futures. Not dissimilar from the final beat that the Dark Avengers also get, but that comes later on, and I will get to it in a minute.
Obviously the above is a brief and over-simplified summary of Dark Avengers' opening arc. There is an amazing amount of other shit that goes down: the Thunderbolts battle Dr. Doom in prehistoric and then modern times; Sultan Magus turns Skaar back into his human form and nearly kills him; Songbird and Mach V (the only Thunderbolts who aren't lost in time) spy on F.A.C.T. and discover what they're up to; Hank Pym makes contact with the Thunderbolts trapped in the future through some classic comicbook super-science; there's a whole fucked up world in that future run by clones of superheroes who battle against gangs of hideous, downtrodden mutants; and probably innumerable other bits and pieces I'm forgetting. Point being, Parker crams it all in without the narrative feeling overcrowded, and still finds a way to bring it all together and make it one cohesive whole. The level of effort and creativity he devotes to the book helps sell the reader on the Dark Avengers characters without giving them the full spotlight right away, and provides the outgoing Thunderbolts with an appropriately epic final escapade. It's exactly what Parker needed to do to make the switch from Thunderbolts to Dark Avengers, welcoming newcomers while respecting the established readership, and just generally writing some damn fine and funny comics to boot.
Once he has properly laid the old title and its cast to rest, Parker writes his only full-fledged Dark Avengers story arc with the remaining seven issues. Sadly, it is less wonderful, though still a good deal of fun. But because the book and cast are still pretty fresh, and this story takes place in an alternate reality, there is a lack of stakes that prevent this narrative from reaching greatness. To Parker's credit, he writes the story like it doesn't matter (but not like he doesn't care, which is an important distinction), keeping it light and action-packed. He revels in the freedom and some of the cliches of having an elseworlds setting, and I happen to be a bit of a sucker for that type of story, so in the end I still think of the latter half of Dark Avengers as successful and good. That it doesn't stack up against the storyline that preceded it is more praise for those issues than condemnation for these.
As part of the resolution to the Sharzhad incident, the Dark Avengers get teleported away by Man-Thing (a Thunderbolt) when the Quinjet that is supposed to take them back to prison swerves off course and is about to crash. Moonstone (also a Thunderbolt) gets caught in the teleportation when she tries to intercept the vessel in mid-air. The Quinjet crashes in a twisted version of modern Marvel New York, where the city has been sectioned off into districts controlled by warped and overpowered version of popular superheroes. A very dark and power-hungry Dr. Strange, the largest and angriest Thing ever seen, Spider-Man with permanent webs and monster teeth, and hyper-fascist Iron Man, who is literally just Tony Stark’s brain in a floating orb inside a suit of robot armor. These are the rulers of this world, long at war with one another but currently in the middle of a yearlong ceasefire that began when Hulk and Thor killed each other. It’s bleak, y’all.
The Dark Avengers get scattered a bit, and end up fighting for different sides of the ongoing war, though in truth all any of them want is to return to their reality. Which, of course, they do, after uncovering that the world they're in is really just an A.I.M. experiment, a "sliver reality" created for the purpose of stealing whatever technology or superpowers or what have you were developed as a result of the endless conflict. A.I.M.'s access point also becomes the Dark Avengers' escape route, and the sliver is folded back into the "real"world as if it never existed at all. And therein lies one of the largest problems with this story: its ending is utterly predictable. That the alternate reality will not last for very long is a given from the beginning. Parker fills the issues with some thrilling action, zany super-science, and solid humor, but none of that does much to distract from the fact that the story is destined to largely undo itself in the end.
Parker is smart and considerate enough to have some of what happens in the sliver universe effect his real-world characters permanently. And when the series finally ends with issue #190, the Dark Avengers are still together, still on the loose, and have a wide open future ahead of them. So despite the somewhat obvious resolution to the alternate reality story specifically, Parker swerves expectations to a degree by leaving the book very open-ended as a whole. Between that, his exaggerated and terrifying versions of well-known characters, and the consistency of Parker's signature humor and fun-loving narrative tone, the final seven chapter of this series manage to be highly entertaining. They're not as enthralling or sprawling as the arc they follow, but taken on their own, they're still better than most current cape comics.
Before I close, I'd be remiss as all get out if I didn't actually discuss the Dark Avengers as separate characters. Though they work toward common goals together consistently in this book, and are therefore easy to discuss as a group (as I've done thus far), the specific roles they play in the stories vary, so they're worth examining as individuals. They are Trickshot, Ragnarok, Toxie Doxie, and Al Apaic, villainous knock-off versions of Hawkeye, Thor, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Man respectively. Also joining them in this book is U.S. Agent, the man who once filled in for Captain America. Though all of these characters were established well before they joined this book, I personally had no experience with them ahead of time (except a few issues of West Coast Avengers that had U.S. Agent in them), so my impressions are based entirely on Parker's interpretations and developments.
Trickshot's easily the least interesting member of the team, because he ends up being a bit one-note. His whole life seems to revolve around trying to outdo his brother, the real Hawkeye, but he's not nearly as cool or as talented. So he comes across as this very lame, weak, pathetic dude, trapping himself in the shadow of a sibling who isn't at all concerned about him. He does have some good laugh lines, though, since he refuses to take anything seriously, but his few humorous moments don't make up for an obnoxious personality.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Toxie Doxie, who Parker wisely chooses to refer to by her real name, June Covington, most of the time. June is intelligent, meticulous, and always thinking ahead, and it makes her more complex and compelling than anyone else on the team. Also, her powers seem to be limitless. Because she gets her abilities through genetic modification, and is herself a brilliant geneticist, she is able to upgrade her powerset more than once over the course of this series. And as the smartest and most powerful Dark Avenger, she becomes the de facto leader, helped considerably by her mind control powers. I would very much like to see what the team turns into under her guidance, which is essentially where Parker leaves them at the end of his run. Technically U.S. Agent is in charge, but the implication is that June has control of his brain, so she's really the one steering. That's a tense and possibly volatile dynamic, and it's a shame Parker didn't get to anything with it beyond the initial set-up.
U.S. Agent himself is not that impressive in this series, a fairly standard, Boy Scouty do-gooder. He's arguably the moral center of the group, but since nobody really listens to him, that's not really true. Ragnarok is in a similar place, doing little of merit and leaving only the faintest impression. He even expresses feeling a lack of personal identity toward the end of the book, something Parker tries to remedy by giving him the hammer of the deceased Thor from the sliver world. Ragnarok is a cyborg clone of the real Thor, so he has some legitimate Asgardian physiology that the alternate Mjolnir recognizes, changing his appearance and boosting his powers exponentially. The long-term effects of this are never seen, though, since the shift comes only one issue before the book closes. So Parker does a lot for Ragnarok's potential, but doesn't get to actually see it fulfilled.
Finally, there's Al Apaic (whose name gets spelled in a lot of different ways depending on who's talking in which issue, so...I'm just going with the one from the recaps on the title pages). He claims to be a god, and it's probably true, but like I said, I don't really know the details of any of these people's histories, and Parker doesn't waste time relating them all to me. Whatever the case, Apaic is quite powerful, able to kill Dr. Strange with a poisonous bite. He's also almost as smart and fast-thinking as June, making him the second most interesting Dark Avenger. Sadly, he's kind of repetitive in his dialogue, much like Trickshot, incessantly reminding everyone he is a deity and demanding respect that he'll never get. Not as sad as Trickshot wanting to one-up his estranged brother, but still a futile and annoying personal goal.
They're an eclectic bunch, and they bring a lot of different combat strategies to the table, which keeps the action in Dark Avengers dynamic and visually pleasing and surprising. And they are all basically assholes, except for U.S. Agent, who's a good guy but so damn dead serious all of the time that he sort of comes across as an ass anyway. But the point is, having a team of selfish, immature villains be the star of your book is not the easiest thing to do without being grating, but Parker finds inventive ways to swing it. Sticking them in a world that's not their own, where the people who should be heroes are instead far more evil than any of the Dark Avengers themselves, allows the reader to root for them even if we don't care for them that much. A fine line to walk, but Parker never stumbles. And though the series is far superior when the Thunderbolts are still in it, it keeps up its breakneck pacing and comedic sensibilities throughout, so it's always a decent read even when it's not firing on all cylinders.
Do I miss it now that it's gone? Not tremendously, but I certainly would've stuck with it if it hadn't been canceled. And should the Dark Avengers ever get another shot at a series of their own, I'm bound to give it a try no matter who the creators are, because Parker---and some really great artists like Declan Shalvey, Kev Walker, and Neil Edwards whom I've criminally neglected in this post---made them strange and fascinating enough for me to want more. I'd like to know if June maintains her sway over U.S. Agent, and what she does with that influence. Does Moonstone stay with this team, or does she go off on her own like the rest of the Thunderbolts got to do? And who does Ragnarok decide he is, now that he has a real magic hammer and not some kind of bizarre rip-off? They're not the world's strongest characters or the best team I've ever seen, but they have a special something, a unique blend of charm and abrasiveness that draws me to them anyway. So I hope they do get a chance to star in something again, but either way, I'm glad for the brief run they had with Jeff Parker at the helm.
The Dark Avengers get scattered a bit, and end up fighting for different sides of the ongoing war, though in truth all any of them want is to return to their reality. Which, of course, they do, after uncovering that the world they're in is really just an A.I.M. experiment, a "sliver reality" created for the purpose of stealing whatever technology or superpowers or what have you were developed as a result of the endless conflict. A.I.M.'s access point also becomes the Dark Avengers' escape route, and the sliver is folded back into the "real"world as if it never existed at all. And therein lies one of the largest problems with this story: its ending is utterly predictable. That the alternate reality will not last for very long is a given from the beginning. Parker fills the issues with some thrilling action, zany super-science, and solid humor, but none of that does much to distract from the fact that the story is destined to largely undo itself in the end.
Parker is smart and considerate enough to have some of what happens in the sliver universe effect his real-world characters permanently. And when the series finally ends with issue #190, the Dark Avengers are still together, still on the loose, and have a wide open future ahead of them. So despite the somewhat obvious resolution to the alternate reality story specifically, Parker swerves expectations to a degree by leaving the book very open-ended as a whole. Between that, his exaggerated and terrifying versions of well-known characters, and the consistency of Parker's signature humor and fun-loving narrative tone, the final seven chapter of this series manage to be highly entertaining. They're not as enthralling or sprawling as the arc they follow, but taken on their own, they're still better than most current cape comics.
Before I close, I'd be remiss as all get out if I didn't actually discuss the Dark Avengers as separate characters. Though they work toward common goals together consistently in this book, and are therefore easy to discuss as a group (as I've done thus far), the specific roles they play in the stories vary, so they're worth examining as individuals. They are Trickshot, Ragnarok, Toxie Doxie, and Al Apaic, villainous knock-off versions of Hawkeye, Thor, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Man respectively. Also joining them in this book is U.S. Agent, the man who once filled in for Captain America. Though all of these characters were established well before they joined this book, I personally had no experience with them ahead of time (except a few issues of West Coast Avengers that had U.S. Agent in them), so my impressions are based entirely on Parker's interpretations and developments.
Trickshot's easily the least interesting member of the team, because he ends up being a bit one-note. His whole life seems to revolve around trying to outdo his brother, the real Hawkeye, but he's not nearly as cool or as talented. So he comes across as this very lame, weak, pathetic dude, trapping himself in the shadow of a sibling who isn't at all concerned about him. He does have some good laugh lines, though, since he refuses to take anything seriously, but his few humorous moments don't make up for an obnoxious personality.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Toxie Doxie, who Parker wisely chooses to refer to by her real name, June Covington, most of the time. June is intelligent, meticulous, and always thinking ahead, and it makes her more complex and compelling than anyone else on the team. Also, her powers seem to be limitless. Because she gets her abilities through genetic modification, and is herself a brilliant geneticist, she is able to upgrade her powerset more than once over the course of this series. And as the smartest and most powerful Dark Avenger, she becomes the de facto leader, helped considerably by her mind control powers. I would very much like to see what the team turns into under her guidance, which is essentially where Parker leaves them at the end of his run. Technically U.S. Agent is in charge, but the implication is that June has control of his brain, so she's really the one steering. That's a tense and possibly volatile dynamic, and it's a shame Parker didn't get to anything with it beyond the initial set-up.
U.S. Agent himself is not that impressive in this series, a fairly standard, Boy Scouty do-gooder. He's arguably the moral center of the group, but since nobody really listens to him, that's not really true. Ragnarok is in a similar place, doing little of merit and leaving only the faintest impression. He even expresses feeling a lack of personal identity toward the end of the book, something Parker tries to remedy by giving him the hammer of the deceased Thor from the sliver world. Ragnarok is a cyborg clone of the real Thor, so he has some legitimate Asgardian physiology that the alternate Mjolnir recognizes, changing his appearance and boosting his powers exponentially. The long-term effects of this are never seen, though, since the shift comes only one issue before the book closes. So Parker does a lot for Ragnarok's potential, but doesn't get to actually see it fulfilled.
Finally, there's Al Apaic (whose name gets spelled in a lot of different ways depending on who's talking in which issue, so...I'm just going with the one from the recaps on the title pages). He claims to be a god, and it's probably true, but like I said, I don't really know the details of any of these people's histories, and Parker doesn't waste time relating them all to me. Whatever the case, Apaic is quite powerful, able to kill Dr. Strange with a poisonous bite. He's also almost as smart and fast-thinking as June, making him the second most interesting Dark Avenger. Sadly, he's kind of repetitive in his dialogue, much like Trickshot, incessantly reminding everyone he is a deity and demanding respect that he'll never get. Not as sad as Trickshot wanting to one-up his estranged brother, but still a futile and annoying personal goal.
They're an eclectic bunch, and they bring a lot of different combat strategies to the table, which keeps the action in Dark Avengers dynamic and visually pleasing and surprising. And they are all basically assholes, except for U.S. Agent, who's a good guy but so damn dead serious all of the time that he sort of comes across as an ass anyway. But the point is, having a team of selfish, immature villains be the star of your book is not the easiest thing to do without being grating, but Parker finds inventive ways to swing it. Sticking them in a world that's not their own, where the people who should be heroes are instead far more evil than any of the Dark Avengers themselves, allows the reader to root for them even if we don't care for them that much. A fine line to walk, but Parker never stumbles. And though the series is far superior when the Thunderbolts are still in it, it keeps up its breakneck pacing and comedic sensibilities throughout, so it's always a decent read even when it's not firing on all cylinders.
Do I miss it now that it's gone? Not tremendously, but I certainly would've stuck with it if it hadn't been canceled. And should the Dark Avengers ever get another shot at a series of their own, I'm bound to give it a try no matter who the creators are, because Parker---and some really great artists like Declan Shalvey, Kev Walker, and Neil Edwards whom I've criminally neglected in this post---made them strange and fascinating enough for me to want more. I'd like to know if June maintains her sway over U.S. Agent, and what she does with that influence. Does Moonstone stay with this team, or does she go off on her own like the rest of the Thunderbolts got to do? And who does Ragnarok decide he is, now that he has a real magic hammer and not some kind of bizarre rip-off? They're not the world's strongest characters or the best team I've ever seen, but they have a special something, a unique blend of charm and abrasiveness that draws me to them anyway. So I hope they do get a chance to star in something again, but either way, I'm glad for the brief run they had with Jeff Parker at the helm.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Dearly Departed: The Infinite Vacation
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
Despite never fully liking the main character, I quite enjoyed The Infinite Vacation. The protagonist, Mark, doesn't particularly care for himself, either, so at least we agreed on that, and everything else that goes down in this story is so energetic, interesting, and goddamn gorgeous that it's easy to overlook a lame leading man. Also, it's not as if Mark has no redeeming qualities. He's just...more pathetic than sympathetic, a passive force for four issues before finally growing the brains and balls to take action in the fifth. Then again, Mark's passivity ties directly into one of the major themes of the book, namely how technology gives us so many choices that none can ever satisfy. It's hard for Mark to know for sure what he wants because he's never had to settle for any one reality in his life. This is a story about discovering the one thing that makes all other choices seem immaterial, and it is in that discovery that Mark becomes a man I can root for rather than merely put up with.
Let me see how succinctly I can summarize this: The Infinite Vacation is a phone app that allows people to see all of the possible lives they could have led in all possible realities, and then bid on those lives against other version of themselves. If you win the bid, you are transported to the new reality, and get to live the life of a different you for as long as you please. Mark is a bit of a serial vacationer, never happy with the life he's chosen and constantly looking for a new, better Mark to become. The problem is that, no matter where he starts out, he finds himself ending up in the same places over and over again: dead-end jobs, stale romances, disillusionment, boredom, depression. This cycle persists until he meets Claire, the woman who's destiny is to push Mark toward his destiny.
Claire is the strongest character in the series. She's everything Mark isn't, in more ways than one. Decisive, confident, comfortable in her own skin, and, most importantly, she's a Deadender, meaning she does not use The Infinite Vacation at all. One reality suits Claire just fine, which at first confuses and even frustrates Mark. But when they find themselves thrust together and fighting to preserve their very existence, Mark is able to find in Claire an understanding of and personal reason for the desire to lead a single, unique life instead of exploring the endless options of multiple realities.
There is a definite heavy-handedness in the presentation of this lesson. Nick Spencer's script, like Mark as a character, can sometimes be a little much, becoming obnoxious with its repetition of the same ideas and the overt, bang-you-over-the-head delivery of its moral(s). There are a lot complex bits and pieces involved in the high concept of this series, and Spencer takes the time to explain and then reexplain them all, exploring the myriad ethical, technological, and philosophical questions something as powerful and popular as The Infinite Vacation would necessarily bring up. The side effect of that thoroughness is that things get revisited and reiterated several times by different characters with different viewpoints, and the ultimate resolution of Mark's journey is telegraphed many times before the man himself arrives there.
In the opening issue, as a matter of fact, Mark is told in no uncertain terms by a surfer-dude version of himself that he should find one thing in this life that makes him happy and give that one this his all, rather than lily-padding from world to world without knowing what he's even looking for. So there's no great subtlety in Spencer's story, nor ambiguity as to where the book stands. And Mark's decision to choose Claire as his one thing is not at all a surprise, nor is it meant to be. She is set up to fill that role for him from her very first appearance, and never once slips from that position. Mark and Claire's path isn't entirely clear, but their destination always is. How they make it there is where things get more bizarre and unexpected.
I mentioned that Spencer does a thorough job of discussing various problems or points of contention that The Infinite Vacation would raise if it really existed. And he does, with things like "boxing" (i.e. erasing from existence) hostile realities that pose a threat to others, having everyone go to copies of themselves for therapy and customer service, what "identity theft" means in a world where you can steal information from a different you, and so on, covering topics large and small at varying levels of detail. But the biggest and most important of these ideas is the Deadenders, who call themselves Singularists, and the Vacation-threatening philosophy they represent. For the bulk of Singularists, it isn't just a matter of not wanting to participate in The Infinite Vacation. There is a pseudo-religious aspect to their thinking, positing the idea that if, indeed, it is possible to visit any conceivable universe, then there must be a universe out there in which there is only one universe. I know that sounds a bit circular, but it also makes a weird kind of sense. If literally anything is possible, then it must be possible to go somewhere where nothing is possible, right?
The Singularists take this one step further, though, and say that, because this universe-of-a-single-universe must exist, then there must, in fact, only be one true universe. It is here that things become a bit more faith-based, but it's not a totally illogical viewpoint, either. This theoretical one-universe reality would, if you were there, necessarily be the one true reality, so from that point it's easy to say that it is, therefore, the one true reality for all realities. Agree with that or not (and I don't know enough about the theoretical science you'd need to know about to back up and/or refute this argument) within The Infinite Vacation, it turns out the Singularists have it right. There is one true universe, and not only does it exist, but it's going to cause the collapse of every other reality in existence.
This collapse is not a part of the Singularist movement's rhetoric, but instead comes to light when the corporation behind the The Infinite Vacation hires a team to research (and, they hope, disprove) the Singularists' claims. The researchers come back and explain that, in fact, the Singularists are correct, and that the appearance of multiple realities is merely just the one real reality waiting to be "observed." I'll admit, they lose me a bit during this part, but the long and short of it is this: the collapse of all realities into a unified one is not only inevitable, but already taking place, and Mark is the cause. Some action Mark will take or thought he'll have will set off the collapse and make it apparent to all, according to the findings. Why Mark? Well, that's the same question that The Infinite Vacation guys ask, and the best response they get is, "Why not?"
The idea seems to be that it could be anyone, it could be anything, so it might as well be Mark. If the collapse is inevitable and, in truth, an already ongoing event, then there's got to be a trigger somewhere, and Mark's as good as any. He gets to be special and unique and dangerous arbitrarily, which, while a bit frustrating on a conceptual level, is humorous and strangely appropriate reasoning on a narrative one. Especially when The Infinite Vacation's own attempt to kill Mark before he can set off the collapse ends up being exactly what causes it.
I won't spoil the ending entirely here, but suffice to say Mark does exactly what we're told he'll do, bringing The Infinite Vacation crashing down around itself and coming out the other end with only one reality left. It is a satisfying ending where our hero realizes his potential and everyone gets what they deserve. The villainous fat cats lose their wicked, dangerous business and Mark gets the girl. Or, perhaps a better way to look at it: Claire finally gets a Mark worthy of her love. He shifts from being a coward and Vacation addict who can't even work up the nerve to introduce himself into a daring action hero who's powered by his love for this incredible woman. As indecisive and unsure of himself as he is in the beginning, by the end he becomes equally confident that, regardless of what else his life throws at him, as long as Claire is a part of it he'll be ok. That's a lovely if simple sentiment, and one the series hammers hard into the reader's brain. No matter how many options modern life provides, none of them will ever be good enough if we don't first find some constants in our lives that make us happy. It may sound like common sense, but it is nevertheless a point that becomes more relevant every day as technology continues to offer us new products and experiences at ever faster and cheaper rates.
Nick Spencer isn't a writer who I usually associate with tight pacing or structure, but The Infinite Vacation is an exception. The debut alone is a shining example, introducing Mark, Claire (and, through her, Deadenders as a group), the concept of The Infinite Vacation, and several funny and/or important details about how it works all in the space of a single issue. From there, Spencer uses each issue to expand in some way everything we've seen so far, whether it's meeting the amoral head of The Infinite Vacation Mr. Vernon, discovering Claire's heartbreaking reason for being a Deadender, learning about "boxing" of threatening realities, or any number of other bits and bobs, all of which come into play in the closing chapter. That final issue, which is something like triple-sized, brings together every character and concept introduced up to that point, closing the story by revisiting and reusing all of its established ideas. That's not easy to do in this kind of sprawling, head-scratching, sci-fi tale, but Spencer pulls it off without it even seeming like a struggle. He is as sure of himself in the end as Mark, and that confidence is key to the series' success.
However, as well-planned and un-Spencerish as the scripts may be, without Christian Ward's artwork, The Infinite Vacation could've been an absolute dud. After all, even if the pacing is on point, Spencer's script does suffer sometimes from wearing its heart too much on its sleeve and/or over-explaining its bigger ideas. That's a lot easier to look past, though, when you're wrapped up in beautiful and inventive visuals, and Ward provides those on literally every page.
Firstly, the comicbook medium is ideal for this story if only because the art can help to explain or demonstrate some of the larger concepts more interestingly and in less time than it would take for Spencer to write them all out. Indeed, the several-page stretch in the third issue that is largely prose, where Spencer explains the inevitability of the collapse and reasons for it, is the driest, dullest, most confusing part of the series. Any other time we're being introduced to a new element, Ward's artwork is there to lend a hand, showing the reader an example or multiple examples of whatever is being explained so it's easier to digest/comprehend. But more than assisting in our understanding, Ward's art brings a very specific energy to this book, a kinetic and psychedelic look that is at once perfectly tailored to and strangely ill-fitting for the story. In a series about technology and reality-hopping, the expectation might be to go futuristic with the style, something a little more mainstream sci-fi. Ward moves in an entirely different, arguably opposite direction, with tie-dye colors, loose figures, generous and intelligent use of blank space, and pages that are practically standalone pieces of abstract art. These looser, jazzier, more emotive stylistic choices speak to the book's ultimate message of love and being happy with the world you're in more than they relate to the high-tech parts of the narrative, which is a smart call. Mostly, though, what works so well about Ward's art is that it would be compelling, beautiful work even if taken out of context, so when it also serves as one half of a fresh and fun comicbook story, its value is heightened exponentially.
Where Spencer's repetitious, overly-explanatory writing can at times be detrimental, Ward uses repeated imagery to great effect, which in turn softens the blow when Spencer repeats himself needlessly. There are images we see over and over again throughout the entire series, some that are used only within a single issue, and even moments where an individual page or panel has multiple copies of something that will never again return. When Mark learns in the first issue that a lot of other Marks have been dying recently, Ward draws an enormous, spiraling image of a bunch of feet with toe tags on them, like you'd find in the morgue. It's not an image that gets revisited, but it sticks nonetheless, because it is so funny and peculiar and so succinctly yet precisely sums up what Mark is feeling in that moment. Meanwhile, the visuals that do carry over from issue to issue help create some consistency in a story that's all about change.
Ward likes to pack his pages more often than not, so the art is very dense, which, again, goes along with the narrative nicely. Yet the strongest artistic moments, for me, at least, are when Ward instead pulls back and gives us a single, clean shot of something significant. Claire's first appearance springs to mind, where she gets an entire page with a blank background devoted to her. I think my favorite, though, comes in issue #4, where there's a two-page spread of Mark is lying in the snow with a young boy standing next to him saying, "You're not my dad." When it happens, it is intentionally confusing, yet even without knowing exactly what's going on there is an incredible sense of importance on those pages, which are, in fact, the beginning of a deeply moving and significant scene. These quieter, more focused moments, on top of being visually stunning, also serve to remind us of the series' ultimate message. While the world offers innumerable avenues of over-stimulation and distraction, it will always be more satisfying to zero our focus on the smaller things in life that bring us joy and let them drown out the rest of the noise. That's what Ward forces us to do on these pages, and it's what The Infinite Vacation wants us to do in the world beyond said pages.
There is a final visual technique that I'm actually not certain should be attributed to Ward, but since he is credited with all of the artwork I have to assume he's responsible for this, too. I'm talking about the photographed pages. There is at least one scene in every issue where all of the panels are actual pictures of real live humans (except the finale, where we get photos on top of hand-drawn panels). Mostly these are used for Infinite Vacation promotional material, though the video laying out the Singularists' viewpoint is also done with this method. Though it's not immediately obvious why the change is made, over time it comes to light that these ads, done in the photographs, are basically lies, while the truth of the story is hand-drawn. It's a simple but effective reversal, using real people for scenes of deceit, and they're all brief and humorous enough not to detract from the series as a whole. It's also an opportunity for Spencer to discuss or even introduce some of his ideas from the point of view of characters other than Mark, without having to fully hand over the narration duties to someone else. And some of the title's strongest humor comes from these photos, which tend to be emotionally exaggerated and feature characters talking out their asses, trying to convince the world that The Infinite Vacation does more good than harm. Never overbearing and always well-timed, these photo scenes are one more visual flourish that sets this book apart.
The Infinite Vacation is a remarkably simple love story folded into a more complex piece of science fiction societal commentary. Both of those facets are right there on the surface, though, which is, if nothing else, a change of pace for this type of story (and for Spencer as a writer). Though there are plenty of questions, there's not a great deal of mystery, because the series opts instead for transparency, laying out the rules and realities of its world honestly and eagerly. It tells us outright what Mark needs and what he's going to do, and then we watch him do it and, in the process, get just what he needs. Yet it manages to surprise along the way, divulging new details and heightening the stakes gradually until an infinite number of entire universes are destroyed. And Christian Ward attempts new feats of artistic acrobatics all the time, toying with color, layout, medium, non-linear storytelling, repeated imagery, and various other tricks and treats, all the while maintaining narrative clarity and a lightweight liveliness in the visual tone and texture. It's a romp, basically, a sweet and funny day-glo romance bearing warnings from a hypothetical not-too-distant future.
Despite never fully liking the main character, I quite enjoyed The Infinite Vacation. The protagonist, Mark, doesn't particularly care for himself, either, so at least we agreed on that, and everything else that goes down in this story is so energetic, interesting, and goddamn gorgeous that it's easy to overlook a lame leading man. Also, it's not as if Mark has no redeeming qualities. He's just...more pathetic than sympathetic, a passive force for four issues before finally growing the brains and balls to take action in the fifth. Then again, Mark's passivity ties directly into one of the major themes of the book, namely how technology gives us so many choices that none can ever satisfy. It's hard for Mark to know for sure what he wants because he's never had to settle for any one reality in his life. This is a story about discovering the one thing that makes all other choices seem immaterial, and it is in that discovery that Mark becomes a man I can root for rather than merely put up with.
Let me see how succinctly I can summarize this: The Infinite Vacation is a phone app that allows people to see all of the possible lives they could have led in all possible realities, and then bid on those lives against other version of themselves. If you win the bid, you are transported to the new reality, and get to live the life of a different you for as long as you please. Mark is a bit of a serial vacationer, never happy with the life he's chosen and constantly looking for a new, better Mark to become. The problem is that, no matter where he starts out, he finds himself ending up in the same places over and over again: dead-end jobs, stale romances, disillusionment, boredom, depression. This cycle persists until he meets Claire, the woman who's destiny is to push Mark toward his destiny.
Claire is the strongest character in the series. She's everything Mark isn't, in more ways than one. Decisive, confident, comfortable in her own skin, and, most importantly, she's a Deadender, meaning she does not use The Infinite Vacation at all. One reality suits Claire just fine, which at first confuses and even frustrates Mark. But when they find themselves thrust together and fighting to preserve their very existence, Mark is able to find in Claire an understanding of and personal reason for the desire to lead a single, unique life instead of exploring the endless options of multiple realities.
There is a definite heavy-handedness in the presentation of this lesson. Nick Spencer's script, like Mark as a character, can sometimes be a little much, becoming obnoxious with its repetition of the same ideas and the overt, bang-you-over-the-head delivery of its moral(s). There are a lot complex bits and pieces involved in the high concept of this series, and Spencer takes the time to explain and then reexplain them all, exploring the myriad ethical, technological, and philosophical questions something as powerful and popular as The Infinite Vacation would necessarily bring up. The side effect of that thoroughness is that things get revisited and reiterated several times by different characters with different viewpoints, and the ultimate resolution of Mark's journey is telegraphed many times before the man himself arrives there.
In the opening issue, as a matter of fact, Mark is told in no uncertain terms by a surfer-dude version of himself that he should find one thing in this life that makes him happy and give that one this his all, rather than lily-padding from world to world without knowing what he's even looking for. So there's no great subtlety in Spencer's story, nor ambiguity as to where the book stands. And Mark's decision to choose Claire as his one thing is not at all a surprise, nor is it meant to be. She is set up to fill that role for him from her very first appearance, and never once slips from that position. Mark and Claire's path isn't entirely clear, but their destination always is. How they make it there is where things get more bizarre and unexpected.
I mentioned that Spencer does a thorough job of discussing various problems or points of contention that The Infinite Vacation would raise if it really existed. And he does, with things like "boxing" (i.e. erasing from existence) hostile realities that pose a threat to others, having everyone go to copies of themselves for therapy and customer service, what "identity theft" means in a world where you can steal information from a different you, and so on, covering topics large and small at varying levels of detail. But the biggest and most important of these ideas is the Deadenders, who call themselves Singularists, and the Vacation-threatening philosophy they represent. For the bulk of Singularists, it isn't just a matter of not wanting to participate in The Infinite Vacation. There is a pseudo-religious aspect to their thinking, positing the idea that if, indeed, it is possible to visit any conceivable universe, then there must be a universe out there in which there is only one universe. I know that sounds a bit circular, but it also makes a weird kind of sense. If literally anything is possible, then it must be possible to go somewhere where nothing is possible, right?
The Singularists take this one step further, though, and say that, because this universe-of-a-single-universe must exist, then there must, in fact, only be one true universe. It is here that things become a bit more faith-based, but it's not a totally illogical viewpoint, either. This theoretical one-universe reality would, if you were there, necessarily be the one true reality, so from that point it's easy to say that it is, therefore, the one true reality for all realities. Agree with that or not (and I don't know enough about the theoretical science you'd need to know about to back up and/or refute this argument) within The Infinite Vacation, it turns out the Singularists have it right. There is one true universe, and not only does it exist, but it's going to cause the collapse of every other reality in existence.
This collapse is not a part of the Singularist movement's rhetoric, but instead comes to light when the corporation behind the The Infinite Vacation hires a team to research (and, they hope, disprove) the Singularists' claims. The researchers come back and explain that, in fact, the Singularists are correct, and that the appearance of multiple realities is merely just the one real reality waiting to be "observed." I'll admit, they lose me a bit during this part, but the long and short of it is this: the collapse of all realities into a unified one is not only inevitable, but already taking place, and Mark is the cause. Some action Mark will take or thought he'll have will set off the collapse and make it apparent to all, according to the findings. Why Mark? Well, that's the same question that The Infinite Vacation guys ask, and the best response they get is, "Why not?"
The idea seems to be that it could be anyone, it could be anything, so it might as well be Mark. If the collapse is inevitable and, in truth, an already ongoing event, then there's got to be a trigger somewhere, and Mark's as good as any. He gets to be special and unique and dangerous arbitrarily, which, while a bit frustrating on a conceptual level, is humorous and strangely appropriate reasoning on a narrative one. Especially when The Infinite Vacation's own attempt to kill Mark before he can set off the collapse ends up being exactly what causes it.
I won't spoil the ending entirely here, but suffice to say Mark does exactly what we're told he'll do, bringing The Infinite Vacation crashing down around itself and coming out the other end with only one reality left. It is a satisfying ending where our hero realizes his potential and everyone gets what they deserve. The villainous fat cats lose their wicked, dangerous business and Mark gets the girl. Or, perhaps a better way to look at it: Claire finally gets a Mark worthy of her love. He shifts from being a coward and Vacation addict who can't even work up the nerve to introduce himself into a daring action hero who's powered by his love for this incredible woman. As indecisive and unsure of himself as he is in the beginning, by the end he becomes equally confident that, regardless of what else his life throws at him, as long as Claire is a part of it he'll be ok. That's a lovely if simple sentiment, and one the series hammers hard into the reader's brain. No matter how many options modern life provides, none of them will ever be good enough if we don't first find some constants in our lives that make us happy. It may sound like common sense, but it is nevertheless a point that becomes more relevant every day as technology continues to offer us new products and experiences at ever faster and cheaper rates.
Nick Spencer isn't a writer who I usually associate with tight pacing or structure, but The Infinite Vacation is an exception. The debut alone is a shining example, introducing Mark, Claire (and, through her, Deadenders as a group), the concept of The Infinite Vacation, and several funny and/or important details about how it works all in the space of a single issue. From there, Spencer uses each issue to expand in some way everything we've seen so far, whether it's meeting the amoral head of The Infinite Vacation Mr. Vernon, discovering Claire's heartbreaking reason for being a Deadender, learning about "boxing" of threatening realities, or any number of other bits and bobs, all of which come into play in the closing chapter. That final issue, which is something like triple-sized, brings together every character and concept introduced up to that point, closing the story by revisiting and reusing all of its established ideas. That's not easy to do in this kind of sprawling, head-scratching, sci-fi tale, but Spencer pulls it off without it even seeming like a struggle. He is as sure of himself in the end as Mark, and that confidence is key to the series' success.
However, as well-planned and un-Spencerish as the scripts may be, without Christian Ward's artwork, The Infinite Vacation could've been an absolute dud. After all, even if the pacing is on point, Spencer's script does suffer sometimes from wearing its heart too much on its sleeve and/or over-explaining its bigger ideas. That's a lot easier to look past, though, when you're wrapped up in beautiful and inventive visuals, and Ward provides those on literally every page.
Firstly, the comicbook medium is ideal for this story if only because the art can help to explain or demonstrate some of the larger concepts more interestingly and in less time than it would take for Spencer to write them all out. Indeed, the several-page stretch in the third issue that is largely prose, where Spencer explains the inevitability of the collapse and reasons for it, is the driest, dullest, most confusing part of the series. Any other time we're being introduced to a new element, Ward's artwork is there to lend a hand, showing the reader an example or multiple examples of whatever is being explained so it's easier to digest/comprehend. But more than assisting in our understanding, Ward's art brings a very specific energy to this book, a kinetic and psychedelic look that is at once perfectly tailored to and strangely ill-fitting for the story. In a series about technology and reality-hopping, the expectation might be to go futuristic with the style, something a little more mainstream sci-fi. Ward moves in an entirely different, arguably opposite direction, with tie-dye colors, loose figures, generous and intelligent use of blank space, and pages that are practically standalone pieces of abstract art. These looser, jazzier, more emotive stylistic choices speak to the book's ultimate message of love and being happy with the world you're in more than they relate to the high-tech parts of the narrative, which is a smart call. Mostly, though, what works so well about Ward's art is that it would be compelling, beautiful work even if taken out of context, so when it also serves as one half of a fresh and fun comicbook story, its value is heightened exponentially.
Where Spencer's repetitious, overly-explanatory writing can at times be detrimental, Ward uses repeated imagery to great effect, which in turn softens the blow when Spencer repeats himself needlessly. There are images we see over and over again throughout the entire series, some that are used only within a single issue, and even moments where an individual page or panel has multiple copies of something that will never again return. When Mark learns in the first issue that a lot of other Marks have been dying recently, Ward draws an enormous, spiraling image of a bunch of feet with toe tags on them, like you'd find in the morgue. It's not an image that gets revisited, but it sticks nonetheless, because it is so funny and peculiar and so succinctly yet precisely sums up what Mark is feeling in that moment. Meanwhile, the visuals that do carry over from issue to issue help create some consistency in a story that's all about change.
Ward likes to pack his pages more often than not, so the art is very dense, which, again, goes along with the narrative nicely. Yet the strongest artistic moments, for me, at least, are when Ward instead pulls back and gives us a single, clean shot of something significant. Claire's first appearance springs to mind, where she gets an entire page with a blank background devoted to her. I think my favorite, though, comes in issue #4, where there's a two-page spread of Mark is lying in the snow with a young boy standing next to him saying, "You're not my dad." When it happens, it is intentionally confusing, yet even without knowing exactly what's going on there is an incredible sense of importance on those pages, which are, in fact, the beginning of a deeply moving and significant scene. These quieter, more focused moments, on top of being visually stunning, also serve to remind us of the series' ultimate message. While the world offers innumerable avenues of over-stimulation and distraction, it will always be more satisfying to zero our focus on the smaller things in life that bring us joy and let them drown out the rest of the noise. That's what Ward forces us to do on these pages, and it's what The Infinite Vacation wants us to do in the world beyond said pages.
There is a final visual technique that I'm actually not certain should be attributed to Ward, but since he is credited with all of the artwork I have to assume he's responsible for this, too. I'm talking about the photographed pages. There is at least one scene in every issue where all of the panels are actual pictures of real live humans (except the finale, where we get photos on top of hand-drawn panels). Mostly these are used for Infinite Vacation promotional material, though the video laying out the Singularists' viewpoint is also done with this method. Though it's not immediately obvious why the change is made, over time it comes to light that these ads, done in the photographs, are basically lies, while the truth of the story is hand-drawn. It's a simple but effective reversal, using real people for scenes of deceit, and they're all brief and humorous enough not to detract from the series as a whole. It's also an opportunity for Spencer to discuss or even introduce some of his ideas from the point of view of characters other than Mark, without having to fully hand over the narration duties to someone else. And some of the title's strongest humor comes from these photos, which tend to be emotionally exaggerated and feature characters talking out their asses, trying to convince the world that The Infinite Vacation does more good than harm. Never overbearing and always well-timed, these photo scenes are one more visual flourish that sets this book apart.
The Infinite Vacation is a remarkably simple love story folded into a more complex piece of science fiction societal commentary. Both of those facets are right there on the surface, though, which is, if nothing else, a change of pace for this type of story (and for Spencer as a writer). Though there are plenty of questions, there's not a great deal of mystery, because the series opts instead for transparency, laying out the rules and realities of its world honestly and eagerly. It tells us outright what Mark needs and what he's going to do, and then we watch him do it and, in the process, get just what he needs. Yet it manages to surprise along the way, divulging new details and heightening the stakes gradually until an infinite number of entire universes are destroyed. And Christian Ward attempts new feats of artistic acrobatics all the time, toying with color, layout, medium, non-linear storytelling, repeated imagery, and various other tricks and treats, all the while maintaining narrative clarity and a lightweight liveliness in the visual tone and texture. It's a romp, basically, a sweet and funny day-glo romance bearing warnings from a hypothetical not-too-distant future.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Dearly Departed: Rebel Blood
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
Surprise endings are hard to pull off. Having a big, world-changing reveal at the very end of a story is often either easy to spot from far away or, even worse, so dramatically unexpected and ill-fitting that it feels forced. In Riley Rossmo and Alex Link's mini-series Rebel Blood, the final twist finds an excellent balance between being truly surprising and making absolute sense in the context of the larger tale. I'm sure some people predicted it while the book was coming out, but I certainly didn't, and even rereading the series after the fact, it's a powerful conclusion. For four issues, we follow Chuck as he fights his way through numerous human and animal zombies in an attempt to reach his family and save them from the infection. Then, rather suddenly, we discover that there were never any zombies, that his family was never in any danger, and that the entire zombie invasion was Chuck's insane hallucination. Of course, that means all the people and animals he ran down, shot, and/or hacked up with an axe were alive and innocent at the time, and so our hero becomes a villain as the story winds down. Perhaps still a man for whom we feel some sympathy, about whom we have an understanding that no one else in the book shares (save for maybe Red, see below), but a cold-blooded murderer nonetheless, and one who went on a terrifying spree before he was finally stopped.
Chuck's mental instability and, truth be told, his unreliability, are both established right away. The second scene of the first issue shows Chuck not only attempting suicide, but lying to his boss about it being an accident and subsequently losing his job as a firefighter. At the same time, we watch his marriage fall to pieces around him while he stoically and silently does nothing to save it. Finally, we learn that Chuck is currently working as a fire lookout, spending his days all alone in a tower in the middle of the woods. All of this immediately sets him up him as deeply unhappy and at least somewhat unstable, in addition to being utterly alone. Not exactly a recipe for a man you're eager to trust.
However, when the zombie shit hits the fan, there's no obvious reason to doubt the reality of it at first. We have not yet been shown anything we know to be unreal, and even if Chuck isn't the most dependable guy, he's perfect in the role of zombie story action hero: he's crazy, he's got nothing to lose, and he's understandably eager to prove himself in light of all his recent failings. So the groundwork laid out by Rossmo and Link doesn't automatically make one doubt what Chuck sees, hears, and experiences. In fact, for me it had the opposite effect---I assumed it was all real, and that the reason for Chuck to have such deep and varied problems was so he could slowly but steadily redeem himself in the face of this crisis, coming out the other end not only a survivor but a victor, probably for the first time in his life. It seemed like he was built for this. And of course that ended up being true, but not in the ways or for the reasons I imagined.
Looking back, there are of course several hints that things are not what they seem. There's a zombiefied pregnant woman on the side of the road who tries to flag Chuck down for assistance---not your average zombie tactic. Or the fact that we watch Chuck get bitten all to hell by a group of infected rats, yet he never himself succumbs to zombieism. And in one of the best parts of the series, there is Danny Whitehead and his friends, a group of hunters/poachers who also live in the woods and who Chuck checks in on before heading back to town. When he arrives, he finds Danny and company already in zombie mode, yet they've lost none of their intelligence. Not the first smart zombies I've ever seen, but definitely an indication that Chuck may be misreading the situation. Plus once Danny's crew overpowers Chuck, they merely bind him and lock him away rather than, say, eating him.
So why, with all these clues, was I fooled by Rebel Blood? Why didn't it ever occur to me as even a possibility that Chuck was making up this whole event? What, precisely, is this comicbook doing right that makes its surprise finale so satisfying and successful?
Even before discovering the depths of Chuck's madness, Rebel Blood is a character study first and a zombie story second. It's so focused on exploring the ins and outs of Chuck's point of view that questioning it never crossed my mind. And more than that, even saddled with all his craziness, Chuck's overall reaction to the zombie infestation is actually fairly grounded and realistic. He has moments where he's overwhelmed by the horrors he has to face, but just as many moments of genuine bravery. Like anyone, his mind runs wild with worst-case scenarios, yet he also motivates himself by imagining that this whole affair will make him into a real-life action hero, earning respect, gratitude, and even fame. Perhaps most realistically, he latches onto a stranger, the only other "survivor" he knows about, a voice coming through his radio that claims to belong to a cop and calls itself Red.
And in Red we find the craziest and most confounding single aspect of the story. Throughout Chuck's adventure, he is followed by a strange lurking figure with a head in the shape of a terrifying deer skull. Though the creature is never directly noticed or addressed, it's clear from the beginning that it has some measure of power or influence over what goes on. So when I first discovered that Chuck was never fighting zombies or in danger of anything but his own insanity, my thought was that this skull-headed demon thing was a physical representation of that insanity. But then, on the very next page, in comes to light that the detective in charge of this bizarre case is none other than Red, and one page after that we see him cast a shadow in the shape of old skullhead. So who or what is Red, really? Considering that his last line is, "Who're you?" his exact identity, nature, motives, etc. are likely meant to remain mysterious, but it seems pretty clear that, to some extent, he's the cause behind Chuck's final, homicidal breakdown. The hows and whys of it are unclear at best, but as I said, this is a character study before it's a zombie story, so the details of what caused Chuck to see these monsters don't need to be explained. The point is how he handles his madness, not where it came from.
Besides, one of the things I like most about Rebel Blood is how much credit it gives its readers. The story moves through time, moves in and out of Chuck's memories and fantasies, and has unsettling and unexplained characters like Mr. Skullhead/Red creeping about, yet it never sacrifices clarity in its storytelling. Smart and subtle visual clues, sometimes as simple as a shift in the coloring, help to keep things from becoming muddled, and the main narrative of Chuck's battle from the woods to his house is so direct that anytime we move away from it, jumping right back in is no problem. The book requires your full attention throughout in order to stick its unexpected landing, but it also holds your attention effortlessly with its captivating and horrifying artwork, natural-yet-stylized dialogue, realistic approach to people in crisis, and flawed and fascinating protagonist.
Chuck isn't easy to like or even understand, but I felt like I had accomplished both by the end of the series, because of how skillfully Link and Rossmo handled him along the way. Realizing that this crazy, angry dude who'd won me over was, in fact, crazier and angrier than I could have known was certainly a punch to the gut, but a thoroughly enjoyable one. I keep coming back to take the hit again, and even though I know it's coming now, it still packs a wallop. That's the mark of a great twist ending: you can return to the story over and over and still feel shock, surprise, and sadness when you reach the conclusion.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Dearly Departed: Casanova: Avaritia
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
Hot and heavy. That's how I would describe Casanova: Avaritia. Not in the sexual sense, although there's plenty of passionate, psychedelic lovemaking going on. But when I say hot and heavy, I'm referring more to the emotional impact of the series. There is a heat to the pace and, even more so, the art of this book. Blazing guns, explosions, rocket ships, and oh so much blood, all done in a palette founded in stark, warm reds. It's as if there was a burner underneath the story, being slowly but steadily cranked up, forcing the characters to charge ever faster toward their individual destinations. As for the heaviness, it comes from the content and, more specifically, the attitude of our titular hero, Casanova Quinn. The ne'er-do-well charm and smugness which were such definitive aspects of Cass's personality in the previous two series are largely absent here. He's no longer playing a game in which he finds any joy, instead feeling trapped in a life of ceaseless violence and pain. Though no less likable a lead, his is definitely less fun and funny here than in the past, and it adds a significant weight to the events of Avaritia. It's hot and it's heavy, and while I'm not yet convinced that it's my favorite of the Casanova titles, it made for the most intense and challenging read.
The choice of red as a base color this time out is an excellent one. Cris Peter uses a variety of crimson shades to underscore the high-octane action and deep sadness of the narrative equally. When violence erupts, so do the colors, as harsh and striking as any of the images they display. But the reds can also be dulled and/or darkened as needed for those times when Casanova is grappling with his depression. In his quieter, more brooding scenes, there tend to be either calmer reds or, more often, simply fewer of them. Peter makes careful use of soft greens and white space to add depth to these more contemplative moments. Cass's hope is fading, and so the world around him becomes muted, especially in contrast to the brash hues of the fight sequences.
While the coloring is a powerful component, as it has always been in the world of Casanova, without Gabriel Bá's insane and insanely gorgeous artwork it would be far less visually stunning. The colors may highlight the book's intense moods, but it is Bá who captures and displays those mood in the first place. Casanova's despair, Luther's innocence and fear, Sasa Lisi's confidence, Seychelle's wickedness...Bá has his entire cast down to a T. Yet even as he delivers nuanced performances from the characters, his style remains generally broad and chaotic, which adds tremendously to the ultimate feel of the series. At its heart, this is still a madcap sci-fi adventure, so the story's severity doesn't mean Bá's art is any more subdued. Quite the opposite, in fact. Early on there is mind-blowing splash page where Casanova is pulled out of a dying universe and back into his own, and from there things only get more artistically astounding. There are pages covered by grids displaying the same events over multiple realities, each rendered just as convincingly and beautifully as the next. Countless new locations, scenes of chaotic action, tender moments of intimate romance, and everything in between are all handled deftly. And, my god, there is an amazing sequence in the final issue that feels like the entire nightclub experience, designer drugs and thumping music and flashing lights all, translated into comicbook form. It's a singular feat of graphic storytelling.
There's no denying the impressive work done by all parties involved in expressing the larger feelings and ideas of this narrative, and Matt Fraction's script is just as essential a facet as the images which accompany it. Casanova is forced by his father Cornelius to eviscerate entire realities in an attempt to erase his arch-enemy, Newman Xeno, from existence. These universe-wide genocides begin to take their toll on Cass, and even when he learns Newman's real name, Luther Desmond Diamond, all that changes is that rather than wipe out whole worlds, Casanova becomes a reality-hopping assassin, incessantly murdering new versions of the same guy. It's a gripping set-up, and it ultimately leads to Cass and his girlfriend Sasa Lisi fighting against Cornelius' goals and rescuing one of the innumerable Luthers to bring into their hearts and their bed. An ultra-violent, sometimes meta-fictional, spacetime travel action love story. No wonder it never has the time (or space) to catch its breath.
One slightly negative result of this pedal-to-the-metal approach is there are a few plot details which end up being rushed passed or glossed over. I've read Avaritia several times, and, I admit, there are a handful of things which still confuse me. The workings of the Lacuna, for instance. Is it where they send Luther in the end, or is it what Cass uses to escape? It appears to be the latter, but then what, exactly, do they do with Luther, and why don't Cass and Sasa merely do the same with themselves? And either way, why did Sasa build a spacetime machine that only one person could use to get away? What was the purpose of suddenly introducing Suki Boutqiue to the story only to just as immediately remove her from the board? And did Kaito murder Cornelius, or is it his cancer that finally does him in as promised in the first issue? Based on what we have here, feels like it could go either way.
Here's the thing, though: I don't really care to find answers to these questions. I'm sure some of them are contained within the book's pages, and as I reread this and the other Casanova titles, those which came before and the ones to follow, I suspect I'll notice more and more until my confusion disappears. But even if that's not the case, I enjoyed the ever-living daylights out of Avaritia, possibly in spite of its breakneck pace but also in part, I think, because of it. Right around the time most of my questions arise, Sasa Lisi describes this whole mess as a "Race to get fucked to infinity," and that's precisely what it feels like. These characters, at least initially, are unable to avoid the violence and death which surround and engulf them, and so they each find their own twisted ways to embrace it instead. They throw themselves headfirst into the muck and, once they meet each other down there, try to kill one another. That is, they do until Cass and Sasa, fueled by their own love, decide to push back against this impulse and, instead, protect a life or two. They spare Suki (may that's why she's in here!), rescue Luther, and in the end Sasa helps Casanova himself escape. The specifics of the methods they use to accomplish all of this saving and fleeing my be unclear, but they're also unnecessary. What matters is that it happens, that in the midst of a seemingly unbreakable cycle of violence these two characters actually manage to protect some lives. Ideally it'd all be understandable, but I'll take emotional/conceptual relevance over total story clarity any day.
The very, very end of Casanova: Avaritia, by which I mean literally the final two or three pages, is also a tad confounding. Presumably meant as a sort of lead-in to the next series, Acedia, it's not so much a resolution as a massive shift in status quo that is not, as of yet, explored. But again, this is not a complaint. While Cass may have managed to escape the situation he was in when this tale began, he clearly has not outrun all of his enemies or problems, and that's a logical place for him to end up. His circumstances were so dire at the start of this narrative, any amount of improvement feels like a major victory, so we get the payoff of seeing our hero succeed even if we know his satisfaction and safety are not going to last for long. The good guys may not win outright, but they accomplish their more immediate goals and also stop the villains from doing the same, so we get to be happy for them, even if only tentatively so. More importantly, though, is the wild ride which brings us to this endpoint. Having already pulled out all the stops in the preceding Casanova titles, Fraction, Bá, and Peter are free here to tell their most hard-hitting narrative to date. It may be more dismal and sometimes depressing than what came before, but it's all the more compelling and ultimately satisfying for it. Nobody is safe from the enormity of what goes on in this book. Not the characters, not the creators, and certainly not the readers. As Sasa Lisi says, "Everybody gets fucked to infinity."
Casanova: Avaritia #1-4 were published by Marvel Worldwide Inc. and are dated November 2011-August 2012.
Hot and heavy. That's how I would describe Casanova: Avaritia. Not in the sexual sense, although there's plenty of passionate, psychedelic lovemaking going on. But when I say hot and heavy, I'm referring more to the emotional impact of the series. There is a heat to the pace and, even more so, the art of this book. Blazing guns, explosions, rocket ships, and oh so much blood, all done in a palette founded in stark, warm reds. It's as if there was a burner underneath the story, being slowly but steadily cranked up, forcing the characters to charge ever faster toward their individual destinations. As for the heaviness, it comes from the content and, more specifically, the attitude of our titular hero, Casanova Quinn. The ne'er-do-well charm and smugness which were such definitive aspects of Cass's personality in the previous two series are largely absent here. He's no longer playing a game in which he finds any joy, instead feeling trapped in a life of ceaseless violence and pain. Though no less likable a lead, his is definitely less fun and funny here than in the past, and it adds a significant weight to the events of Avaritia. It's hot and it's heavy, and while I'm not yet convinced that it's my favorite of the Casanova titles, it made for the most intense and challenging read.
The choice of red as a base color this time out is an excellent one. Cris Peter uses a variety of crimson shades to underscore the high-octane action and deep sadness of the narrative equally. When violence erupts, so do the colors, as harsh and striking as any of the images they display. But the reds can also be dulled and/or darkened as needed for those times when Casanova is grappling with his depression. In his quieter, more brooding scenes, there tend to be either calmer reds or, more often, simply fewer of them. Peter makes careful use of soft greens and white space to add depth to these more contemplative moments. Cass's hope is fading, and so the world around him becomes muted, especially in contrast to the brash hues of the fight sequences.
While the coloring is a powerful component, as it has always been in the world of Casanova, without Gabriel Bá's insane and insanely gorgeous artwork it would be far less visually stunning. The colors may highlight the book's intense moods, but it is Bá who captures and displays those mood in the first place. Casanova's despair, Luther's innocence and fear, Sasa Lisi's confidence, Seychelle's wickedness...Bá has his entire cast down to a T. Yet even as he delivers nuanced performances from the characters, his style remains generally broad and chaotic, which adds tremendously to the ultimate feel of the series. At its heart, this is still a madcap sci-fi adventure, so the story's severity doesn't mean Bá's art is any more subdued. Quite the opposite, in fact. Early on there is mind-blowing splash page where Casanova is pulled out of a dying universe and back into his own, and from there things only get more artistically astounding. There are pages covered by grids displaying the same events over multiple realities, each rendered just as convincingly and beautifully as the next. Countless new locations, scenes of chaotic action, tender moments of intimate romance, and everything in between are all handled deftly. And, my god, there is an amazing sequence in the final issue that feels like the entire nightclub experience, designer drugs and thumping music and flashing lights all, translated into comicbook form. It's a singular feat of graphic storytelling.
There's no denying the impressive work done by all parties involved in expressing the larger feelings and ideas of this narrative, and Matt Fraction's script is just as essential a facet as the images which accompany it. Casanova is forced by his father Cornelius to eviscerate entire realities in an attempt to erase his arch-enemy, Newman Xeno, from existence. These universe-wide genocides begin to take their toll on Cass, and even when he learns Newman's real name, Luther Desmond Diamond, all that changes is that rather than wipe out whole worlds, Casanova becomes a reality-hopping assassin, incessantly murdering new versions of the same guy. It's a gripping set-up, and it ultimately leads to Cass and his girlfriend Sasa Lisi fighting against Cornelius' goals and rescuing one of the innumerable Luthers to bring into their hearts and their bed. An ultra-violent, sometimes meta-fictional, spacetime travel action love story. No wonder it never has the time (or space) to catch its breath.
One slightly negative result of this pedal-to-the-metal approach is there are a few plot details which end up being rushed passed or glossed over. I've read Avaritia several times, and, I admit, there are a handful of things which still confuse me. The workings of the Lacuna, for instance. Is it where they send Luther in the end, or is it what Cass uses to escape? It appears to be the latter, but then what, exactly, do they do with Luther, and why don't Cass and Sasa merely do the same with themselves? And either way, why did Sasa build a spacetime machine that only one person could use to get away? What was the purpose of suddenly introducing Suki Boutqiue to the story only to just as immediately remove her from the board? And did Kaito murder Cornelius, or is it his cancer that finally does him in as promised in the first issue? Based on what we have here, feels like it could go either way.
Here's the thing, though: I don't really care to find answers to these questions. I'm sure some of them are contained within the book's pages, and as I reread this and the other Casanova titles, those which came before and the ones to follow, I suspect I'll notice more and more until my confusion disappears. But even if that's not the case, I enjoyed the ever-living daylights out of Avaritia, possibly in spite of its breakneck pace but also in part, I think, because of it. Right around the time most of my questions arise, Sasa Lisi describes this whole mess as a "Race to get fucked to infinity," and that's precisely what it feels like. These characters, at least initially, are unable to avoid the violence and death which surround and engulf them, and so they each find their own twisted ways to embrace it instead. They throw themselves headfirst into the muck and, once they meet each other down there, try to kill one another. That is, they do until Cass and Sasa, fueled by their own love, decide to push back against this impulse and, instead, protect a life or two. They spare Suki (may that's why she's in here!), rescue Luther, and in the end Sasa helps Casanova himself escape. The specifics of the methods they use to accomplish all of this saving and fleeing my be unclear, but they're also unnecessary. What matters is that it happens, that in the midst of a seemingly unbreakable cycle of violence these two characters actually manage to protect some lives. Ideally it'd all be understandable, but I'll take emotional/conceptual relevance over total story clarity any day.
The very, very end of Casanova: Avaritia, by which I mean literally the final two or three pages, is also a tad confounding. Presumably meant as a sort of lead-in to the next series, Acedia, it's not so much a resolution as a massive shift in status quo that is not, as of yet, explored. But again, this is not a complaint. While Cass may have managed to escape the situation he was in when this tale began, he clearly has not outrun all of his enemies or problems, and that's a logical place for him to end up. His circumstances were so dire at the start of this narrative, any amount of improvement feels like a major victory, so we get the payoff of seeing our hero succeed even if we know his satisfaction and safety are not going to last for long. The good guys may not win outright, but they accomplish their more immediate goals and also stop the villains from doing the same, so we get to be happy for them, even if only tentatively so. More importantly, though, is the wild ride which brings us to this endpoint. Having already pulled out all the stops in the preceding Casanova titles, Fraction, Bá, and Peter are free here to tell their most hard-hitting narrative to date. It may be more dismal and sometimes depressing than what came before, but it's all the more compelling and ultimately satisfying for it. Nobody is safe from the enormity of what goes on in this book. Not the characters, not the creators, and certainly not the readers. As Sasa Lisi says, "Everybody gets fucked to infinity."
Casanova: Avaritia #1-4 were published by Marvel Worldwide Inc. and are dated November 2011-August 2012.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Dearly Departed: Who Is Jake Ellis?
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
No individual element of Who Is Jake Ellis? is particularly new or original in-and-of itself. We've seen this kind of spy action-thriller countless times, where one character has to improvise a fight against some large and powerful organization. And we've seen characters dealing with voices in their head, real or imagined or somewhere in between, on numerous occasions as well. Hell, in some ways the series even follows a buddy cop formula: two men forced to work together who don't necessarily get along at first but over the course of the story come to understand, respect, and care for one another. My point is, there's not a lot of groundbreaking ideas contained within Who Is Jake Ellis?, but the storytelling is so well-executed, in words and images both, that the end result is a series far, far greater than the sum of its parts. As a story and a comicbook, it is a lesson in contrasting forces cooperating to create a cohesive whole: Jon and Jake's opposing styles and priorities, the stark artwork coupled with the subtle scripting, and within the art itself the various degrees of shadow accompanied by brash, bright coloring. And of course there's the ending, which somehow wholly satisfies and addresses the story's central mystery while at the same time serving only to raise further, larger questions than we had before. It's an excellent little series---by which I mean only five issues---well-paced, action-packed, and filled to the brim with compelling characters and stunning visuals.
One of the strongest aspects is the way writer Nathan Edmondson so carefully feeds information to the reader. Take the opening scene in the very first issue. Rather than holding our hands and explaining to us what's happening, or even starting at the beginning of Jake and Jon's adventures, Edmondson throws us immediately into the action. For the first few pages, we're as confused as the criminals from whom Jon runs. The book then rewinds and shows us what we were missing: Jon has an unseen, possibly-imagined ally in this fight in the form of Jake Ellis, a man who seems to live in Jon's mind, yet somehow has access to knowledge and information which Jon does not. From there, we continue to learn about both men, the nature of their partnership, and their histories not through info dumps or even, at first, through flashback. Instead, Edmondson crafts subtle, realistic conversations between his main characters that let the reader in on what's happening without ever feeling forced. It's not easy to write expositional dialogue that still feels organic, but Edmondson clearly has a knack for it, and even in later issues when we do have some flashbacks and more overt explanations, this technique is never abandoned and always well-used.
It helps that Edmondson creates such strong characters to work with, and that his two stars rarely see eye-to-eye. Jon worries about short-term survival and hardly ever wonders where Jake came from or how he does what he does. Jon basically assumes Jake must be a figment of his own fractured psyche. Jake, on the other hand, has been planning for the future, and wants nothing more than to solve the mystery of his existence. So the two have plenty of legitimate reasons to discuss and debate not only their current situation, but the experiences they've shared in the past, and because we're fortunate enough to overhear these arguments, we get to learn about our heroes along the way. Who they are as people, how they differ, the ways in which they work together, and the horrible things they've lived through all come to light gradually and naturally.
Edmondson doesn't deserve all the praise, however, and if I am being honest he may not even deserve half of it. Because the art of Who Is Jake Ellis?, handled top-to-bottom by Tonci Zonjic, is simply spectacular. Zonjic's work grabs your attention, especially his brilliant use of color. Often, an entire panel or even a full page will be a wash of one bold color, but it always serves a distinct purpose. Like the transition from deep, soft blues to alternating Day-Glo panels as Jon and Jake move from couch to dance floor at a nightclub. Or the harsh red lighting of the labs and alarms in The Facility. Or, one of my personal favorites, the rich tans and muted maroons of Marrakech, covered in thick clouds of sand and dust. Even something as seemingly simple as the gray-on-black design of Jake Ellis brings a lot to the book. Immediately, we see that this is a man who isn't a whole man, who's there but not really there. This look alone does as much for our understanding of Jake as anything Edmondson provides.
It's not just in the coloring that Zonjic impresses, though. His action sequences are alive and clear. His characters are consistent and expressive, even the near-faceless Jake. And each new location, of which there are many, has as much detail and care devoted to it as the last. Zonjic really builds a world in these five issues, a stylized, sexy, beautifully-lit world that I only wish I could somehow spend more time in.
One more thing I want to point out about the art: Zonjic's treatment of death. There's a fair deal of action in Who Is Jake Ellis? but not that great a number of fatalities, and only three characters who have any lines ever die: the girl Jon sleeps with, the DIA agent, and the bald old doctor at the end. Each of these deaths is given a specific weight and significance in the way it's presented visually. The young woman Jon spends a night with takes a bullet through the head, which we see as a stark black silhouette on a bright yellow background. It's a powerful image, with the thick blood spatter like black paint flung carelessly at a canvas from its brush. And it's a powerful moment for Jon, watching an innocent die in his place, because of his actions. He is rattled by it, and it reminds him (and teaches us) of the kinds of enemies he has. The same is true of the DIA agent's unexpected assassination. For that, Zonjic gives us a perfect portrait of surprise: the agent's stunned look as his head explodes against the car behind him, Jon's gun flying through the air as he abandons his grip on it, the startled fear in Jon's face as he rears back from the blast. And in the next panel, reflected in a mud puddle where Jon's gun lands, we see the agent's face again, frozen in that same terrified expression. As the weapon sinks into the dirty water, the loss of a potential ally sinks in for Jon and the reader alike. For both deaths, Zonjic displays the sadness and especially the suddenness that make these kinds of violent attacks such brutal experiences.
Then there's Jon's murder of the doctor (or whatever he is---Jon calls him "this doc"). Though it begins as suddenly as the other two, the actual moment of the doctor's death is slowed down a little while still being contained in one panel. He is bathed in the flash of the gun, made so pale as to appear almost ghostly, except for his strong black shadow being cast on the white wall behind him. Jon fires two bullets, and without any sound effects added we see both shells expelled from the weapon and both entry wounds on the doctor, one on each side of his chest. We may only be seeing half a second more here than with either of the two deaths discussed above, but really that's twice as much time. This is the closest thing to a victory against their oppressors as Jon and Jake ever get, so Zonjic gives it special attention, making it last as long as it can in the physical space of a single panel.
If there's one thing Zonjic and Edmondson's styles share in this book, it's this expert use of space, this careful pacing. Edmondson tells us exactly what we need to hear, and Zonjic shows us what we want and need to see. So even though the ending doesn't explain in any detail the goals or methods of The Facility, or what exactly connects Jake and Jon to each other, by the time we get there it hardly matters. Because Who Is Jake Ellis? does for its readers the same thing Jake does for Jon. It guides us through this incredible adventure with more knowledge than we have, but still only limited information. And it gets us to care about Jake as a person, it makes us want to see Jon step up and try to figure out who Jake is. Which is exactly what happens. Jon finally gets to take on the bad guys all by himself, watching Jake's back instead of vice versa, and while we may not know the details of Jake's background (or Jon's, really) we know now that he is, in fact, his own man, and that The Facility no longer has him in their grasp. More than enough to make me happy, and of course on the final page Edmondson throws us a bone, leaving the door open for possible sequels. Sequels which I will consider "highly-anticipated" until further notice.
Who Is Jake Ellis? was published by Image Comics and is dated January 2011-October 2011.
No individual element of Who Is Jake Ellis? is particularly new or original in-and-of itself. We've seen this kind of spy action-thriller countless times, where one character has to improvise a fight against some large and powerful organization. And we've seen characters dealing with voices in their head, real or imagined or somewhere in between, on numerous occasions as well. Hell, in some ways the series even follows a buddy cop formula: two men forced to work together who don't necessarily get along at first but over the course of the story come to understand, respect, and care for one another. My point is, there's not a lot of groundbreaking ideas contained within Who Is Jake Ellis?, but the storytelling is so well-executed, in words and images both, that the end result is a series far, far greater than the sum of its parts. As a story and a comicbook, it is a lesson in contrasting forces cooperating to create a cohesive whole: Jon and Jake's opposing styles and priorities, the stark artwork coupled with the subtle scripting, and within the art itself the various degrees of shadow accompanied by brash, bright coloring. And of course there's the ending, which somehow wholly satisfies and addresses the story's central mystery while at the same time serving only to raise further, larger questions than we had before. It's an excellent little series---by which I mean only five issues---well-paced, action-packed, and filled to the brim with compelling characters and stunning visuals.
One of the strongest aspects is the way writer Nathan Edmondson so carefully feeds information to the reader. Take the opening scene in the very first issue. Rather than holding our hands and explaining to us what's happening, or even starting at the beginning of Jake and Jon's adventures, Edmondson throws us immediately into the action. For the first few pages, we're as confused as the criminals from whom Jon runs. The book then rewinds and shows us what we were missing: Jon has an unseen, possibly-imagined ally in this fight in the form of Jake Ellis, a man who seems to live in Jon's mind, yet somehow has access to knowledge and information which Jon does not. From there, we continue to learn about both men, the nature of their partnership, and their histories not through info dumps or even, at first, through flashback. Instead, Edmondson crafts subtle, realistic conversations between his main characters that let the reader in on what's happening without ever feeling forced. It's not easy to write expositional dialogue that still feels organic, but Edmondson clearly has a knack for it, and even in later issues when we do have some flashbacks and more overt explanations, this technique is never abandoned and always well-used.
It helps that Edmondson creates such strong characters to work with, and that his two stars rarely see eye-to-eye. Jon worries about short-term survival and hardly ever wonders where Jake came from or how he does what he does. Jon basically assumes Jake must be a figment of his own fractured psyche. Jake, on the other hand, has been planning for the future, and wants nothing more than to solve the mystery of his existence. So the two have plenty of legitimate reasons to discuss and debate not only their current situation, but the experiences they've shared in the past, and because we're fortunate enough to overhear these arguments, we get to learn about our heroes along the way. Who they are as people, how they differ, the ways in which they work together, and the horrible things they've lived through all come to light gradually and naturally.
Edmondson doesn't deserve all the praise, however, and if I am being honest he may not even deserve half of it. Because the art of Who Is Jake Ellis?, handled top-to-bottom by Tonci Zonjic, is simply spectacular. Zonjic's work grabs your attention, especially his brilliant use of color. Often, an entire panel or even a full page will be a wash of one bold color, but it always serves a distinct purpose. Like the transition from deep, soft blues to alternating Day-Glo panels as Jon and Jake move from couch to dance floor at a nightclub. Or the harsh red lighting of the labs and alarms in The Facility. Or, one of my personal favorites, the rich tans and muted maroons of Marrakech, covered in thick clouds of sand and dust. Even something as seemingly simple as the gray-on-black design of Jake Ellis brings a lot to the book. Immediately, we see that this is a man who isn't a whole man, who's there but not really there. This look alone does as much for our understanding of Jake as anything Edmondson provides.
It's not just in the coloring that Zonjic impresses, though. His action sequences are alive and clear. His characters are consistent and expressive, even the near-faceless Jake. And each new location, of which there are many, has as much detail and care devoted to it as the last. Zonjic really builds a world in these five issues, a stylized, sexy, beautifully-lit world that I only wish I could somehow spend more time in.
One more thing I want to point out about the art: Zonjic's treatment of death. There's a fair deal of action in Who Is Jake Ellis? but not that great a number of fatalities, and only three characters who have any lines ever die: the girl Jon sleeps with, the DIA agent, and the bald old doctor at the end. Each of these deaths is given a specific weight and significance in the way it's presented visually. The young woman Jon spends a night with takes a bullet through the head, which we see as a stark black silhouette on a bright yellow background. It's a powerful image, with the thick blood spatter like black paint flung carelessly at a canvas from its brush. And it's a powerful moment for Jon, watching an innocent die in his place, because of his actions. He is rattled by it, and it reminds him (and teaches us) of the kinds of enemies he has. The same is true of the DIA agent's unexpected assassination. For that, Zonjic gives us a perfect portrait of surprise: the agent's stunned look as his head explodes against the car behind him, Jon's gun flying through the air as he abandons his grip on it, the startled fear in Jon's face as he rears back from the blast. And in the next panel, reflected in a mud puddle where Jon's gun lands, we see the agent's face again, frozen in that same terrified expression. As the weapon sinks into the dirty water, the loss of a potential ally sinks in for Jon and the reader alike. For both deaths, Zonjic displays the sadness and especially the suddenness that make these kinds of violent attacks such brutal experiences.
Then there's Jon's murder of the doctor (or whatever he is---Jon calls him "this doc"). Though it begins as suddenly as the other two, the actual moment of the doctor's death is slowed down a little while still being contained in one panel. He is bathed in the flash of the gun, made so pale as to appear almost ghostly, except for his strong black shadow being cast on the white wall behind him. Jon fires two bullets, and without any sound effects added we see both shells expelled from the weapon and both entry wounds on the doctor, one on each side of his chest. We may only be seeing half a second more here than with either of the two deaths discussed above, but really that's twice as much time. This is the closest thing to a victory against their oppressors as Jon and Jake ever get, so Zonjic gives it special attention, making it last as long as it can in the physical space of a single panel.
If there's one thing Zonjic and Edmondson's styles share in this book, it's this expert use of space, this careful pacing. Edmondson tells us exactly what we need to hear, and Zonjic shows us what we want and need to see. So even though the ending doesn't explain in any detail the goals or methods of The Facility, or what exactly connects Jake and Jon to each other, by the time we get there it hardly matters. Because Who Is Jake Ellis? does for its readers the same thing Jake does for Jon. It guides us through this incredible adventure with more knowledge than we have, but still only limited information. And it gets us to care about Jake as a person, it makes us want to see Jon step up and try to figure out who Jake is. Which is exactly what happens. Jon finally gets to take on the bad guys all by himself, watching Jake's back instead of vice versa, and while we may not know the details of Jake's background (or Jon's, really) we know now that he is, in fact, his own man, and that The Facility no longer has him in their grasp. More than enough to make me happy, and of course on the final page Edmondson throws us a bone, leaving the door open for possible sequels. Sequels which I will consider "highly-anticipated" until further notice.
Who Is Jake Ellis? was published by Image Comics and is dated January 2011-October 2011.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Dearly Departed: Vengeance
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
The covers for the six issues of Vengeance each sport an incredible image of one of the most significant villains in Marvel history: Magneto, Bullseye, Doctor Octopus, Loki, Red Skull, and Dr. Doom. And that is pretty much where the similarities between this series and other modern superhero comics end, because Vengeance is about parts of the Marvel Universe (and parts of the whole comicbook hero-villain dichotomy) that you rarely ever see. It's primarily a story about a team of "good guys" (The Teen Brigade) protecting various old school "bad guys" from a new team of younger "bad guys" (The Young Masters). But even that oversimplifies the plot, because what The Teen Brigade is really protecting is the balance of order and chaos needed to keep the universe intact. Their goals are much loftier than those of your average superhero. The Teen Brigade isn't out to merely thwart the plans of the newest baddies in town or even to act as a symbol of hope and justice for the common man. What they do is more nuanced, and ultimately higher-stakes: working behind the scenes to keep the whole machine operating, helping to prevent evil and disaster and the end of all things without ever asking for or even desiring recognition. And this attitude is a big part of what makes Vengeance so gripping from the start. Even the opening page of the opening issue immediately expresses the belief that people like The Teen Brigade are a necessity, because the world is too damaged and unthinkable to be saved by the ideals or heroes of times past. The biggest, ugliest evils lie in the shadows, and they can only be defeated by opponents who operate just as comfortably there.
While this behind-the-scenes-superheroes idea is definitely one of the most interesting aspects of the title early on, the glue that holds it together throughout isn't any one concept, character, or theme. It is the magnificent storytelling from writer Joe Casey and artist Nick Dragotta. In a story which argues that chaos and order need each other, Casey and Dragotta manage to prove that point by so deftly balancing those two forces within the comic itself. There are panels or even whole pages offered to us that are meant to be confusing or seemingly random at first, but each and every one of them leads us to a big payoff down the line, often in the form of a major plot development (e.g. Tiboro's one-panel appearance in the final moments of #1, only to have him properly introduced and explained in #5...but in such a spectacular way!) For the first two issues, you might legitimately believe you were reading three distinct and separate stories: one about The Teen Brigade finding a new and mysterious recruit, one about The Young Masters forming, and a third about Kyle Richmond and his Defenders trying to track down whoever is leaking top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. information. Then you dig into #3, and the connections between those stories fall into place so naturally and quickly that the entire last half of the series gets to just steadily ramp up the madness and importance of the plot, adding new complications and revelations at each turn.
In the hands of lesser creators, a narrative so layered and constantly evolving would most likely be fumbled. Key pieces of the puzzle would be poorly explained or left out, the aforementioned confusing scenes would never have their necessary resolutions, etc. But Dragotta can make a four-person psychic trip look as stunning, natural, and comprehensible as a massive demonic invasion of Latveria or a crowded nightclub scene or just Red Skull standing in the snow. He is a perfect artist for this book, because it relies on heavy detail, intense action, moments of great disorientation, and heavy emotion. Dragotta delivers reliably on all fronts for all six issues. He also finds an excellent partner in colorist Brad Simpson, who highlights all the right aspects of Dragotta's pages and maintains the clarity in even the most psychedelic scenes. And it seems to me that the overall effect of The In-Betweener---his distinct role as a character who has his own unique knowledge, perspective, and therefore side in the conflict---is due as much to his stark black-and-white coloring as any of his actions or dialogue
The true creative force of nature behind this incredible title, however, is Joe Casey. My understanding is that a large number of the cast and concepts central to Vengeance had been used in Casey's previous work for Marvel, of which I have admittedly read very little. But my lack of familiarity with what came before didn't seem to make Vengeance any less full or enjoyable an experience. I suppose I don't really know how much would be added if I did read all of Casey's earlier Marvel material, but Vengeance does such a fantastic job of introducing and developing all of its characters, themes, and big ideas that it could almost be read without even that much preexisting comicbook knowledge. Certainly the big-name villains who show up each issue are best appreciated if you're up on your Marvel U history, but the major themes of the book are universal, and the most important characters are instantly clear, relatable, and consistent, even if most of them have extreme personalities. Casey handles his massive cast with remarkable skill. It's not just the unique voices of each character, but their carefully individualized viewpoints, motives, and moods as well. Even though each team works together, it is rare that you find two members of the same team who are there for quite the same reasons. Or who even have the same opinions about how to handle whatever situation they're in. It makes the combat a little looser, the adventure a little bit more free-form, and the whole story much more compelling to have so many shades of good and evil constantly bumping up against one another (in some cases literally) for so many different reasons.
Take Ultimate Nullifier's (leader of The Teen Brigade) one night stand with Black Knight (half-hearted member of The Young Masters) after their initial conflict. Both of them know he's there to get information as much or more than sex, but Black Knight never resists or even tries to play him for her own gains. Instead, she volunteers more information than he wants or needs, of a kind he wasn't seeking. She lets him in on an old and horrible government secret, in an attempt to prove to him not just the futility of his own actions, but also the actions and goals of the entireties of both their teams. Of course, in what has by that point become his typical quick-witted, laid-back, devil-may-care fashion, Ultimate Nullifier responds with a partially sarcastic nod to one of the book's major themes: Of course the world has powerful, hideous, unknown evils. That's why it needs equally powerful, sexy, unknown agents of good.
So much of what we thinks of as part of the make-up of a typical superhero character is his or her reputation. Not just how well-known they are in our world outside of the comic community, but public opinion within their own stories. Sometimes the people of Gotham see Batman as their champion, sometimes as a dangerous maniac. Ditto the X-men. Spider-Man's relationship with the media has always been a contentious issue. Even in Grant Morrison's recent re-imagining of Superman in Action Comics, a running thread has been Metropolis' reaction to their new alien citizen. And let's face it...they almost all wear masks or disguises. They use code names. These people are worried about how the world sees them.
Vengeance offers a new model for the superhero and therefore, arguably, for the superhero comicbook. These are heroes who actively avoid being recognized for their work, even by their allies. At the end of the series, as The Defenders stand around in the post-battle afterglow, The Teen Brigade jets off as quickly and quietly as they can, because they all agree, sticking around would have been pointless. That world-saving mission is accomplished, on to the next one.
I wish so much that the adventures of these characters didn't end there, but I doubt if we'll get to see any further exploits of Casey's Teen Brigade anytime soon. Their reasons for being, their modus operandi, and the scale at which they operate are all outside of the mold of standard superhero stories. So we will have to live with just these six issues, I suppose, for the foreseeable future. Of course, I say "just these six," but the fact is there is a wealth of enjoyable material contained within them. Because it's not just a great story, it's an exemplary use of both the genre and the medium in which it tells its tale.
Vengeance was published by Marvel Comics and is dated September 2011-February 2012.
The covers for the six issues of Vengeance each sport an incredible image of one of the most significant villains in Marvel history: Magneto, Bullseye, Doctor Octopus, Loki, Red Skull, and Dr. Doom. And that is pretty much where the similarities between this series and other modern superhero comics end, because Vengeance is about parts of the Marvel Universe (and parts of the whole comicbook hero-villain dichotomy) that you rarely ever see. It's primarily a story about a team of "good guys" (The Teen Brigade) protecting various old school "bad guys" from a new team of younger "bad guys" (The Young Masters). But even that oversimplifies the plot, because what The Teen Brigade is really protecting is the balance of order and chaos needed to keep the universe intact. Their goals are much loftier than those of your average superhero. The Teen Brigade isn't out to merely thwart the plans of the newest baddies in town or even to act as a symbol of hope and justice for the common man. What they do is more nuanced, and ultimately higher-stakes: working behind the scenes to keep the whole machine operating, helping to prevent evil and disaster and the end of all things without ever asking for or even desiring recognition. And this attitude is a big part of what makes Vengeance so gripping from the start. Even the opening page of the opening issue immediately expresses the belief that people like The Teen Brigade are a necessity, because the world is too damaged and unthinkable to be saved by the ideals or heroes of times past. The biggest, ugliest evils lie in the shadows, and they can only be defeated by opponents who operate just as comfortably there.
While this behind-the-scenes-superheroes idea is definitely one of the most interesting aspects of the title early on, the glue that holds it together throughout isn't any one concept, character, or theme. It is the magnificent storytelling from writer Joe Casey and artist Nick Dragotta. In a story which argues that chaos and order need each other, Casey and Dragotta manage to prove that point by so deftly balancing those two forces within the comic itself. There are panels or even whole pages offered to us that are meant to be confusing or seemingly random at first, but each and every one of them leads us to a big payoff down the line, often in the form of a major plot development (e.g. Tiboro's one-panel appearance in the final moments of #1, only to have him properly introduced and explained in #5...but in such a spectacular way!) For the first two issues, you might legitimately believe you were reading three distinct and separate stories: one about The Teen Brigade finding a new and mysterious recruit, one about The Young Masters forming, and a third about Kyle Richmond and his Defenders trying to track down whoever is leaking top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. information. Then you dig into #3, and the connections between those stories fall into place so naturally and quickly that the entire last half of the series gets to just steadily ramp up the madness and importance of the plot, adding new complications and revelations at each turn.
In the hands of lesser creators, a narrative so layered and constantly evolving would most likely be fumbled. Key pieces of the puzzle would be poorly explained or left out, the aforementioned confusing scenes would never have their necessary resolutions, etc. But Dragotta can make a four-person psychic trip look as stunning, natural, and comprehensible as a massive demonic invasion of Latveria or a crowded nightclub scene or just Red Skull standing in the snow. He is a perfect artist for this book, because it relies on heavy detail, intense action, moments of great disorientation, and heavy emotion. Dragotta delivers reliably on all fronts for all six issues. He also finds an excellent partner in colorist Brad Simpson, who highlights all the right aspects of Dragotta's pages and maintains the clarity in even the most psychedelic scenes. And it seems to me that the overall effect of The In-Betweener---his distinct role as a character who has his own unique knowledge, perspective, and therefore side in the conflict---is due as much to his stark black-and-white coloring as any of his actions or dialogue
The true creative force of nature behind this incredible title, however, is Joe Casey. My understanding is that a large number of the cast and concepts central to Vengeance had been used in Casey's previous work for Marvel, of which I have admittedly read very little. But my lack of familiarity with what came before didn't seem to make Vengeance any less full or enjoyable an experience. I suppose I don't really know how much would be added if I did read all of Casey's earlier Marvel material, but Vengeance does such a fantastic job of introducing and developing all of its characters, themes, and big ideas that it could almost be read without even that much preexisting comicbook knowledge. Certainly the big-name villains who show up each issue are best appreciated if you're up on your Marvel U history, but the major themes of the book are universal, and the most important characters are instantly clear, relatable, and consistent, even if most of them have extreme personalities. Casey handles his massive cast with remarkable skill. It's not just the unique voices of each character, but their carefully individualized viewpoints, motives, and moods as well. Even though each team works together, it is rare that you find two members of the same team who are there for quite the same reasons. Or who even have the same opinions about how to handle whatever situation they're in. It makes the combat a little looser, the adventure a little bit more free-form, and the whole story much more compelling to have so many shades of good and evil constantly bumping up against one another (in some cases literally) for so many different reasons.
Take Ultimate Nullifier's (leader of The Teen Brigade) one night stand with Black Knight (half-hearted member of The Young Masters) after their initial conflict. Both of them know he's there to get information as much or more than sex, but Black Knight never resists or even tries to play him for her own gains. Instead, she volunteers more information than he wants or needs, of a kind he wasn't seeking. She lets him in on an old and horrible government secret, in an attempt to prove to him not just the futility of his own actions, but also the actions and goals of the entireties of both their teams. Of course, in what has by that point become his typical quick-witted, laid-back, devil-may-care fashion, Ultimate Nullifier responds with a partially sarcastic nod to one of the book's major themes: Of course the world has powerful, hideous, unknown evils. That's why it needs equally powerful, sexy, unknown agents of good.
So much of what we thinks of as part of the make-up of a typical superhero character is his or her reputation. Not just how well-known they are in our world outside of the comic community, but public opinion within their own stories. Sometimes the people of Gotham see Batman as their champion, sometimes as a dangerous maniac. Ditto the X-men. Spider-Man's relationship with the media has always been a contentious issue. Even in Grant Morrison's recent re-imagining of Superman in Action Comics, a running thread has been Metropolis' reaction to their new alien citizen. And let's face it...they almost all wear masks or disguises. They use code names. These people are worried about how the world sees them.
Vengeance offers a new model for the superhero and therefore, arguably, for the superhero comicbook. These are heroes who actively avoid being recognized for their work, even by their allies. At the end of the series, as The Defenders stand around in the post-battle afterglow, The Teen Brigade jets off as quickly and quietly as they can, because they all agree, sticking around would have been pointless. That world-saving mission is accomplished, on to the next one.
I wish so much that the adventures of these characters didn't end there, but I doubt if we'll get to see any further exploits of Casey's Teen Brigade anytime soon. Their reasons for being, their modus operandi, and the scale at which they operate are all outside of the mold of standard superhero stories. So we will have to live with just these six issues, I suppose, for the foreseeable future. Of course, I say "just these six," but the fact is there is a wealth of enjoyable material contained within them. Because it's not just a great story, it's an exemplary use of both the genre and the medium in which it tells its tale.
Vengeance was published by Marvel Comics and is dated September 2011-February 2012.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Dearly Departed: Green Wake
Dearly Departed is a semi-regular
column where I look back on recently completed or canceled series.
It begins so simply. Sepia tones, overt narration, a car crash. A woman is dead and the man who's with her is overwhelmed by it. He tells us so, plainly and directly, in his captions. For a page or two, it feels like so much more forgettable melodramatic tragedy.
Then the man is swallowed up by a pile of frogs that appear from nowhere. And then next thing you know, with no warning or introduction or even a time stamp, we're in a whole new place with a whole new color scheme (although it is a limited and muted palette), looking at a brutally murdered body. We also see two men who are looking at the corpse for themselves, one of whom seems to be the man from the car crash (but wasn't he just buried in frogs?) and the other one who appears...to BE a frog? Or maybe like a half-frog? What the hell is going on here?
In this somewhat disorienting opening four pages to its debut issue, Green Wake quickly establishes some of its most important and pervasive elements: the dark and chaotic art that Riley Rossmo utilizes brilliantly throughout the series; the narrative voice of the story's protagonist, Morley; and above all, it lets the reader know that this is not a book to be breezed through, that it will be somewhat unpredictable and deceitful. Not that it is a difficult read, per se, but it is not exactly an easy one either. If attention is paid to each page and panel, it's actually not that complicated a story. For all intents and purposes, it's a crime procedural like any other, except that it is set in a supernatural world built out of people's guilt. And also it's partly a Messiah story. So maybe it is kind of complicated.
It is certainly too intricate to bother trying to rehash or summarize the plot for you here. I highly recommend you read it if you haven't, and I'll talk about why in a moment. But before I dig into my opinions, give it a look for yourself. It is, after all, only ten issues. That's just TWO trades! Go for it.
But if you're unfamiliar with the story, then here's what you should know---Image originally slated Green Wake to be a five-issue mini-series. But it was so immediately well-received, they decided to change it into an ongoing series before the initial five issues had even all come out (if memory serves, the announcement was made between #3 and #4). Then, almost as quickly, it got canceled, after only one other arc (also five issues long) was completed. What results is an interesting kind of narrative. Each arc has threads that are very much self-contained, but they also tell one continuous and complete story together: the story of Morley slowly gaining an understanding of over Green Wake (the titular setting of the series) until, in the end, he is abel to destroy it and free all of its inhabitants.
Looking back on the entire run, I can't help but wonder if this tight connectedness between the two arcs is part of why the series never picked up enough steam to keep going. Morley escapes his guilt and thus escapes Green Wake at the end of the first arc, and then in the final pages of #5 and the opening pages of #6, he comes back again. His only explanation is that his self-forgiveness "didn't stick," and while it is true that guilt is never easily overcome, I'm not sure I buy the idea that a man who worked so hard and long get to a place where he could let go of his pain would immediately slip back into such an overbearing depression.
But even if Morley's return and role as destroyer of Green Wake were inevitable (and it does feel like writer Kurtis Wiebe always knew that's what Morley would ultimately accomplish), he definitely did not need to come back to Green Wake RIGHT AWAY. It's really not that hard to imagine "Lost Children" without him (the first four issues, anyway). It would still be pretty damned compelling. Esther's story could be shown in full rather than related in a few panels of dialogue, and through her Morley's legend would resonate and remain significant. Krieger and his junkie nemesis could still have their escalating battle, leading to Krieger's death. Carl could still show up, sometimes fighting against his new mistress and sometimes doing her killing. And Micah and the children could go through all the same beats, their story remainaing more or less unchanged, with the exception that Micah wouldn't go to Morley for help. In the end, he would declare his independence and return to the schoolhouse on his own, still get seen by Esther, and still get eaten by his original victims, the children over whom he sent himself to Green Wake in the first place. "Lost Children" has legs without Morley, because in many ways Morley's story is separate from the rest of the narrative. He goes through the motions of investigating the new murders, but what he's really doing the whole time is trying to figure out Green Wake itself. His searches never lead him to Esther's lost children, even though she basically tells him all about them. He decides that he doesn't care, that in this case the murders past and the impending murder of Micah are acceptable losses. Because what he wants is the truth about a deeper mystery.
Hmm...I didn't plan on this column being one long argument against Morley's return, and still don't. I actually think it's totally appropriate, perfectly so, that the finale of the series would be Morley ripping Hecate/Green Wake's guts out and sending everyone trapped there back to their actual lives. That's always where he was headed, whether he knew it or not; it was always his endgame. Figuring Green Wake out is what drove him, and he had to know that figuring her out would mean pissing her off and having to fight her influence. I just wonder if hurrying him back into the book weakened it overall, and though I don't really believe that a second arc without Morley would have prevented its cancellation...I want to believe it, because I want to believe in a world where it's true that if a more interesting story is told, sales improve.
Of course, the real problem "Lost Children" had was that it was following that first arc, that original five issues. Which, by the way, is a serious masterpiece. And that is ALL about Morley. He's a unique figure in Green Wake from the beginning, and his reasons for being there, as well as his reasons for acting the way he does while he's there, are both incredibly simple and intensely profound. He's a really amazing character in a really amazing world, not to mention what a badass hardboiled detective he makes. Always smoking, always saying cool, gritty shit. Brooding constantly. He's perfect, and that first story---"Green Wake" I guess, would be the name of the arc---is arguably perfect as well. It hits all the right beats in all the right places, and it relies on such simple, universal themes and plot points to build the foundation for such a complex story. Car accidents, lost love, cheating on someone while living abroad, second chances...it's all so familiar. Yet the world that is built up around and because of these things allows the characters and readers alike to reexamine them and really appreciate their power over us. Wiebe captures so many different kinds of anger and depression and sadness in his different characters' distinct voices, and Rossmo captures them all equally well in his kinetic drawings.
It's remarkable how expressive Rossmo's art is even while it helps add to the horror and chaos and confusion. At the end of #2, when Green Wake first takes physical form, we see what something truly ugly and horrible looks like in a world where ugliness and horror are commonplace. And his deliberate use of the color red, in both arcs, brings just the right level of life and vibrancy to Green Wake. Even though, admittedly, the reds are mostly for blood, fire, and the clothing of villains. Still, Green Wake might have survived without Morley, but Rossmo was essential from start to finish.
Wiebe, too, who clearly had a powerful and detailed vision of Green Wake (and non-italicized Green Wake) from the onset, and who is dangerously skilled in both dialogue and pacing. I have not read much else by Wiebe (I should, right?), but his voice is singular and unique as an author here, even as he speaks through so many varied character voices.
Truth be told, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Kelly Tindall on letters. A lot of interesting and important cues are gives in the letters as to where and when we are in the story. Not so often that they serve that kind of role, and it makes Green Wake all the more impressive.
And it is an impressive series. Despite my frustration with some of the decisions about how to move forward after the opening story, I throughly enjoyed every issue of Green Wake as it came out, and continue to enjoy them all on multiple re-reads. It is an exploration and celebration of human emotion and its ability to affect the world and the people around us. It is a bloody murderfest set in a nightmare world. It is just another story of a man seeking redemption.
For real, it's only ten issues. Go read it.
Green Wake was published by Image Comics and is dated April 2011-February 2012.
It begins so simply. Sepia tones, overt narration, a car crash. A woman is dead and the man who's with her is overwhelmed by it. He tells us so, plainly and directly, in his captions. For a page or two, it feels like so much more forgettable melodramatic tragedy.
Then the man is swallowed up by a pile of frogs that appear from nowhere. And then next thing you know, with no warning or introduction or even a time stamp, we're in a whole new place with a whole new color scheme (although it is a limited and muted palette), looking at a brutally murdered body. We also see two men who are looking at the corpse for themselves, one of whom seems to be the man from the car crash (but wasn't he just buried in frogs?) and the other one who appears...to BE a frog? Or maybe like a half-frog? What the hell is going on here?
In this somewhat disorienting opening four pages to its debut issue, Green Wake quickly establishes some of its most important and pervasive elements: the dark and chaotic art that Riley Rossmo utilizes brilliantly throughout the series; the narrative voice of the story's protagonist, Morley; and above all, it lets the reader know that this is not a book to be breezed through, that it will be somewhat unpredictable and deceitful. Not that it is a difficult read, per se, but it is not exactly an easy one either. If attention is paid to each page and panel, it's actually not that complicated a story. For all intents and purposes, it's a crime procedural like any other, except that it is set in a supernatural world built out of people's guilt. And also it's partly a Messiah story. So maybe it is kind of complicated.
It is certainly too intricate to bother trying to rehash or summarize the plot for you here. I highly recommend you read it if you haven't, and I'll talk about why in a moment. But before I dig into my opinions, give it a look for yourself. It is, after all, only ten issues. That's just TWO trades! Go for it.
But if you're unfamiliar with the story, then here's what you should know---Image originally slated Green Wake to be a five-issue mini-series. But it was so immediately well-received, they decided to change it into an ongoing series before the initial five issues had even all come out (if memory serves, the announcement was made between #3 and #4). Then, almost as quickly, it got canceled, after only one other arc (also five issues long) was completed. What results is an interesting kind of narrative. Each arc has threads that are very much self-contained, but they also tell one continuous and complete story together: the story of Morley slowly gaining an understanding of over Green Wake (the titular setting of the series) until, in the end, he is abel to destroy it and free all of its inhabitants.
Looking back on the entire run, I can't help but wonder if this tight connectedness between the two arcs is part of why the series never picked up enough steam to keep going. Morley escapes his guilt and thus escapes Green Wake at the end of the first arc, and then in the final pages of #5 and the opening pages of #6, he comes back again. His only explanation is that his self-forgiveness "didn't stick," and while it is true that guilt is never easily overcome, I'm not sure I buy the idea that a man who worked so hard and long get to a place where he could let go of his pain would immediately slip back into such an overbearing depression.
But even if Morley's return and role as destroyer of Green Wake were inevitable (and it does feel like writer Kurtis Wiebe always knew that's what Morley would ultimately accomplish), he definitely did not need to come back to Green Wake RIGHT AWAY. It's really not that hard to imagine "Lost Children" without him (the first four issues, anyway). It would still be pretty damned compelling. Esther's story could be shown in full rather than related in a few panels of dialogue, and through her Morley's legend would resonate and remain significant. Krieger and his junkie nemesis could still have their escalating battle, leading to Krieger's death. Carl could still show up, sometimes fighting against his new mistress and sometimes doing her killing. And Micah and the children could go through all the same beats, their story remainaing more or less unchanged, with the exception that Micah wouldn't go to Morley for help. In the end, he would declare his independence and return to the schoolhouse on his own, still get seen by Esther, and still get eaten by his original victims, the children over whom he sent himself to Green Wake in the first place. "Lost Children" has legs without Morley, because in many ways Morley's story is separate from the rest of the narrative. He goes through the motions of investigating the new murders, but what he's really doing the whole time is trying to figure out Green Wake itself. His searches never lead him to Esther's lost children, even though she basically tells him all about them. He decides that he doesn't care, that in this case the murders past and the impending murder of Micah are acceptable losses. Because what he wants is the truth about a deeper mystery.
Hmm...I didn't plan on this column being one long argument against Morley's return, and still don't. I actually think it's totally appropriate, perfectly so, that the finale of the series would be Morley ripping Hecate/Green Wake's guts out and sending everyone trapped there back to their actual lives. That's always where he was headed, whether he knew it or not; it was always his endgame. Figuring Green Wake out is what drove him, and he had to know that figuring her out would mean pissing her off and having to fight her influence. I just wonder if hurrying him back into the book weakened it overall, and though I don't really believe that a second arc without Morley would have prevented its cancellation...I want to believe it, because I want to believe in a world where it's true that if a more interesting story is told, sales improve.
Of course, the real problem "Lost Children" had was that it was following that first arc, that original five issues. Which, by the way, is a serious masterpiece. And that is ALL about Morley. He's a unique figure in Green Wake from the beginning, and his reasons for being there, as well as his reasons for acting the way he does while he's there, are both incredibly simple and intensely profound. He's a really amazing character in a really amazing world, not to mention what a badass hardboiled detective he makes. Always smoking, always saying cool, gritty shit. Brooding constantly. He's perfect, and that first story---"Green Wake" I guess, would be the name of the arc---is arguably perfect as well. It hits all the right beats in all the right places, and it relies on such simple, universal themes and plot points to build the foundation for such a complex story. Car accidents, lost love, cheating on someone while living abroad, second chances...it's all so familiar. Yet the world that is built up around and because of these things allows the characters and readers alike to reexamine them and really appreciate their power over us. Wiebe captures so many different kinds of anger and depression and sadness in his different characters' distinct voices, and Rossmo captures them all equally well in his kinetic drawings.
It's remarkable how expressive Rossmo's art is even while it helps add to the horror and chaos and confusion. At the end of #2, when Green Wake first takes physical form, we see what something truly ugly and horrible looks like in a world where ugliness and horror are commonplace. And his deliberate use of the color red, in both arcs, brings just the right level of life and vibrancy to Green Wake. Even though, admittedly, the reds are mostly for blood, fire, and the clothing of villains. Still, Green Wake might have survived without Morley, but Rossmo was essential from start to finish.
Wiebe, too, who clearly had a powerful and detailed vision of Green Wake (and non-italicized Green Wake) from the onset, and who is dangerously skilled in both dialogue and pacing. I have not read much else by Wiebe (I should, right?), but his voice is singular and unique as an author here, even as he speaks through so many varied character voices.
Truth be told, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Kelly Tindall on letters. A lot of interesting and important cues are gives in the letters as to where and when we are in the story. Not so often that they serve that kind of role, and it makes Green Wake all the more impressive.
And it is an impressive series. Despite my frustration with some of the decisions about how to move forward after the opening story, I throughly enjoyed every issue of Green Wake as it came out, and continue to enjoy them all on multiple re-reads. It is an exploration and celebration of human emotion and its ability to affect the world and the people around us. It is a bloody murderfest set in a nightmare world. It is just another story of a man seeking redemption.
For real, it's only ten issues. Go read it.
Green Wake was published by Image Comics and is dated April 2011-February 2012.
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