Catching Up With February (2 of 2)

Continued from yesterday, my thoughts on every new comic I bought in February, which I got all at once at the end of the month after neglecting to visit my local shop before then.

Batman Black and White #6: First of all, I did not know this was a mini-series. It makes perfect sense, of course, that they wouldn't put this out indefinitely, but it's still a bummer to learn only now that this is the last issue. There were a few truly godawful stories here and there, but mostly this was an excellent book, and one of my last connections to DC outside of their Vertigo stuff. Ah, well, at least it went out with a strong issue. Cliff Chiang's opening story was particularly good, about Dick Grayson trying to earn the respect of Batman and the Gotham police as Robin. Chiang writes Dick as confident and smart but still young, new to the game and not 100% sure of himself, until the end when it really matters. Chiang's artwork also may have been my favorite in the issue, though Dave Johnson's was a close second, as was his script. Chiang's work was a little inkier/heavier, which I ultimately preferred to Johnson's grayer style, but they were both excellent, especially in their interpretations of Batman. Slim but strong, realistically fit and scary without seeming larger than life. All the artists in this issue had a good-looking Batman, actually. The Olly Moss/Becky Cloonan story that came second was excellent, because I'm always a fan of stories that examine how horrible and fake Bruce Wayne is as Batman's public persona. Also, Becky Cloonan rules always. And the second-to-last story by Adam Hughes impressed me by first bothering me with its Batman-comes-to-the-rescue-of-a-helpless-Catwoman plot but then turning things around by revealing that Catwoman was the one running the show all along. Her reasons for manipulating Batman didn't wow me, but at least she was played as smart and strong rather than a damsel in distress. Dave Taylor's middle story was my least favorite, though his artwork was great, able to capture the chaos of a mad scientist's lab in a very confined space without cluttering things up too much. But I cringed at his interpretation of Alfred as an outspoken, sarcastic skeptic, totally unsupportive of Batman at every turn. Also, having the villain explain his plan in a long self-congratulatory speech was uninspired and unnecessary, since Batman had pretty much figured things out already anyway. I'm grateful that the weakest narrative came right in the middle, though, because it made this issue open and close with things I liked, as good a way to finish Batman Black and White as I could ask for.

Harbinger #21: This issue is exemplary of what I love most about Harbinger—Joshua Dysart's spot on characterization of teenagers. Here, the Renegades have been hiding underground, literally, for too long, and the close quarters are starting to take their toll. Charlene and Torque are drinking a lot, Monica Jim keeps sneaking out when she thinks no one is looking, and tons of pressure have just been piled on thanks to hacktivist @X leaking all of Project Rising Spirit's information last issue. Now @X is hiding with the Renegades, meaning Harada is searching for them harder than ever, so they decide it's time to act. After all this time planning their next move, Peter and Kris figure if they want to carry out their plans, it's now or never, so things are coming to a head. Meanwhile, Faith and Torque lose their virginities to one another, in a very sweet, touching, funny, awkward, utterly teenaged scene. I've been rooting for Faith and Peter to become a couple all this time, but now that she and Torque have connected, I must say, they make much more sense to me. She's the most put-together member of the team, the most emotionally mature, but also the least self-confident. He's basically the opposite, emotionally still a little boy but with all the bluster and swagger that comes with it. If Faith could calm Torque down and Torque could amp Faith up, they'd be even better versions of themselves, so I'm eager to see how their relationship develops from here. Along the same lines, Monica Jim is revealing herself to be something of a malcontent, so I'm curious about her future role in the series as well. She may end up a villain or, at the very least, a major liability, and that's exciting and a little frightening to consider. Harbinger is really in its groove these days. Dysart has assembled this wonderfully dysfunctional team of young rebels, and as their struggles get crazier and more dangerous, the book becomes more and more arresting. And @X is a perfect addition to the cast, another teen with an ax to grind (get it?) but also an outsider and non-psiot, yet with enough hacker skills to make him an interesting and useful expansion to their collective skill set. With Clayton Henry's smooth, clear, expressive artwork also on board, Harbinger #21 was one of the most rock solid issues of one of the most reliably strong series coming out today. An origin for @X, a new romance, and major steps forward in the series' larger plot. That's a lot to get done, but it doesn't feel wedged in. It moves calmly but with determined purpose, a well-oiled machine firing on all cylinders.

Catalyst Comix #8: In its second-to-last issue, Catalyst Comix naturally brings all three of its stories to a head. The Agents of Change finally learn the truth about how Bert has been manipulating and lying to them, and they get appropriately pissed off about it. Bert tries to shut them up by separating them in the simulated environment in which their psyches are currently housed, but the pushback is stronger than anticipated, and it looks like next time they may be busting out and rejoining the real world as a unified group of furious super-people. Frank Wells discovers that it was Grace, not himself, who truly saved the world in December 2012, and coming to grips with his own unimportance in that event is a difficult but necessary step in his path to enlightenment. Now fully in touch with himself, Frank is ready for the final phase of his process of becoming the best superhero he can be. Finally, in her own story, Grace reaches the Reaver Swarm, her true enemy, the real threat to life on Earth. And she finds herself unprepared for its size and power. It destroys her ship and captures her, starting to consume her, so she sends out some kind of psychic distress call to the folks back home. Her survival seems unlikely, but maybe the citizens of her city will save her or, at the very least, succeed where she failed. Hers has always been my favorite narrative, and here in the penultimate chapter, it ends with the most compelling cliffhanger. Joe Casey has done a great job building to these climactic points in all three tales, and hopefully he'll nail the final chapters as well. All of his artistic collaborators continue to produce incredible work, giving the book a single voice while also keeping the different storylines distinct from one another. Catalyst Comix has been a weird, fantastic look at what superheroes can be, and it'll be missed.

Unity #4: The finale to Unity's first arc, and possibly its least interesting issue to date, primarily because all of its major developments were easy to see coming. Aric wasn't going to be separate from his armor for long, because X-O Manowar is still a series. And Harada had to be officially kicked off the team before they could do anything else together, since we'd already seen the rest of them agree he was an enemy. So that's what happens: Ninjak, Gilad, and Livewire steal back Aric's armor, stomp Harada with it, and return it to its original owner while freeing him and his followers from a secret prison. It's inevitable, and though Matt Kindt writes it logically and efficiently, there aren't any real surprises in there. All the characters are used well, the story does what it should, and the ending is tidy but still leaves the road open for the book's future. Also, Doug Braithwaite is still on art duties, and still crushing it. The one new character in this issue, Anchor, was one of my favorites in the whole series so far. He was very simple, like a big ugly thumb with a body, but there's a tenderness to him the undercuts his size and sturdiness nicely. In only a few pages on a single issue, Anchor is given a sad little background, a likable if pathetic personality, and an important but ultimately failed role to play in a key fight. That fight is where Braithwaite really brings in the noise, most of all when Ninjak and Harada face each other. Some intense, expertly-executed violence in those panels. Even the most predictable issue of this series is good comics, but it's too bad Braithwaite is leaving (at least for now) on a somewhat dull note. CAFU's a fine enough artist, but with a less rich style than Braithwaite's, and also, I find, less interesting.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #6: This was a very consumable issue, and I'm starting to think that's the main appeal of this book. It's such simple, almost retro superheroics. All the heroes are devoted, hard-working, good. They're not all nice, but they are honest and earnest, they try to do the right thing, they look out for one another, they believe in the cause. The villains, on the other hand, are all mad scientists and cultists and others hellbent on mad levels of power. There have been giant ancient monsters, dinosaur robots, and, this issue, a twelve-year-old evil genius. Even the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents' abilities—speed, strength, invisibility—tend to lean toward the classic, the easy-to-understand. And all of that is refreshing. This is a book that exists outside any continuity or shared universe, where secret agents and superheroes are one-and-the-same, and everything is straightforward and black-and-white. EXCEPT...there's some kind of crazy-old, crazy-secret thing with glyphs on it that holds the secret to deep, mystic power and/or knowledge and/or who the hell knows what else. This one cosmic puzzle that sits at the heart of the series helps it stand out, and is the throughline that keeps the narrative wheels turning. But Phil Hester slow-plays that mystery and uses most of his time to tell awesome, to-the-point superhero adventure tales. That's what this issue is, and what they've all been, and, with any luck, what they'll continue to be in perpetuity. The artist is Roger Robinson, not a name I think I've seen before, but more than earning his keep here. The huge, multi-eyed flying octopus robot emerging from the water was incredible, as was all of the action surrounding its appearance. I also loved the crazy mind-control helmet that got made on the fly out of spare parts assembled by a magnetized robot spider. Rogers managed to show what was happening clearly and quickly, giving the awesome final image of the helmet tuning on enough space for it to come with a great light show. That panel is also a highlight of colorist Rom Fajardo's work on the issue. It's good all over, from both Rogers and Fajardo, smoother in the foregrounds and on the characters, but with subtler details and textures in the backgrounds to give things a bit of depth. This is a blast of a book, always, and this issue is no exception.

Thor: God of Thunder #19.NOW: What is .NOW? There does not seem to be a separate issue #19 of this series coming out, which is what they used to to with .1 issues, right? It'd go 19, 19.1, 20, or at least that's my memory of it. Not sure what the last .1 issue I read was. Probably an X-Factor. Anyway, I guess all the .NOW is supposed to indicate is that this is the start of something fresh for this series, a new arc for the All-New Marvel NOW currently being rolled out across the line. If so...dumb. There's already the biggest, most obnoxious white "#1" imaginable in the right corner of the cover to say exactly the same thing, so the tiny "NOW" sitting underneath the "19." at the bottom is hardly going to draw anyone in. Ok, that's all I had to say about that idiotic thing. As for this actual comic, it was pretty lame as far as Thor stories go. The real star was an environmentally-focused S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Rosalind Solomon, who is funny and brash and cool, but the main reason she's here is because Thor has a crush on her and is trying to impress her by kinda-sorta helping to save the environment. The result is that there's a lot of Solomon arguing with her boss and then with one of the bigwigs at the evil Roxxon Corporation, while Thor operates more in the background, showing up to save Solomon and ask her out awkwardly. It makes both characters look weaker—Solomon because Thor keeps fighting her battles for her, and Thor because he's diverting all of his energy to getting the attention of a woman, which is not a look Jason Aaron manages to make look good on Thor. There's not enough humor, charm, or self-confidence in Thor's approach. I get that he's trying to be respectful, but it comes across as just acting out-of-character, oddly timid. As evidence of how much less exciting this story is than usual, and how stifled Thor is as a hero within it, I submit the incredibly gorgeous splash page of Thor smashing a frost giant in the face. This moment, while visually beautiful, is forced into the middle of the comic as a full-page punchline to a very weak joke Thor makes in the preceding panel about how he got his hands on a large amount of ice. It is also the only classically Thor-like moment in the comic, and one of only two times Esad Ribic truly gets to shine as an artist, the other being the final splash of Galactus showing up on a desolate, far-future Earth. The rest of the issue is too confined, trapped in environmental debate, Roxxon posturing, and Old Man Thor moping in the future. There are no thrills, no big action, nothing worthy of the might of this character, and nothing fit to display how amazingly majestic Ribic's work can be. This series has been all about doing Thor as an epic warrior, so seeing him brought back down to earth feels like deflation. It's not that human, grounded Thor stories can't work, but they are not what Aaron does well in this title, and I was less than enthused by this first chapter. Hopefully things will become a little more intense now that Galactus is involved, and the Roxxon guy is, I think, secretly a minotaur, based on his nickname and the cover image. So things may be amping up soon as far as power levels, but this issue was underwhelming in that regard.

Kings Watch #4: First things first: Marc Laming is dominating with this book. His invading hordes of monsters and beastmen are especially delicious, but even just the establishing shot of Skull Cave or Lothar firing Zarkov's giant sonic weapon are enough to give me chills. There's a lot of fantastical and/or sci-fi stuff going down, and Laming makes it all look real and, when appropriate, terrifying. And there's a lot of personality in every character, even the expendable grunts in Ming's forces. Laming makes them all detailed, unique, fully-realized animal-people. Shout out to colorist Jordan Boyd, too, who makes all the explosions and magic look lifelike in their lighting, matching Laming's realism. As far as hard-hitting action-adventure comics go, I can't imagine there's much coming out right now that looks any better than this. And because this issue had the most chaotic, widespread combat, it was perhaps the best-looking yet. Jeff Parker's script is excellent, too, smartly paced to keep things lively. The shit officially hits the fan, and the heroes step up immediately to deal with it. Kings Watch is not dissimilar to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, in that much of its appeal is how simple things are from a morality standpoint for all the main characters. Ming calls himself merciless, he calmly and plainly explains to the people of Earth that he's there to invade them and turn their way of life upside down. He's so comfortable as a villain, and so unconcerned with being perceived as such, that he lays his cards out on the table right away. The heroes, meanwhile, are free from any of the bickering or strategic debate of many teams, trusting one another already and respecting all the voices of the group equally. It makes them extremely efficient, able to believably assess the threat Ming represents and cook up a response in only 24 hours. They haven't won the war, of course, and I'd argue they lost the first round last issue, but round two goes to the good guys for sure.

Rachel Rising #23: I've praised this series a lot, and so have many others, and it's all well-deserved. This issue didn't stand out to me as especially great, but a lot of important things happened, as they pretty much always do. Rachel and Jet met up with Zoe again and, finally, figured out that she's not the little girl she appears to be. All of the masks are falling off, and this was an important one to finally do away with. Rachel also got ahold of her box of witch stuff at last, and the process to return Aunt Johnny's soul to her body came a few steps closer to being complete. All gripping, significant stuff, but also all relatively mundane. The creepiest part of the issue is when Dr. Siemen considers having sex with Johnny's soulless body, which lasts for a few tiny panels before the power goes out and he has to deal with that instead. Other than that, the events of this issue run fairly smoothly, until the final, haunting panel that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I'm not going to waste time trying to describe it because I could never do it justice, but it's probably the most beautiful, unsettling, horrific thing Terry Moore has done in this series up to now. I don't even really know what it means yet, but it has already left its mark. One unforgettable panel is more than most comics have to offer, so this is still a great comic, but it wasn't as bonkers as Rachel Rising can be. Then again, there's been a pattern of calms before storms, so chances are a major storm is a-comin'. My impression of Moore's plan is that the storyline that's been running through this series from the start is about to wrap up, and certainly it feels that way in-story, with Rachel, Jet, and Zoe all headed for Lilith together for what they hope will be the final confrontation. So this was a quick pause before all the scores get settled, which is a structurally sound way to go, and fits with the general pace of this title.

Daredevil #36: The "last" issue of this series before the same creators relaunch it next month as a new volume with a new, higher price (ugh). Mark Waid, true to form, comes up with a very clever way for Matt Murdock to defeat the Sons of the Serpent, by revealing that he's Daredevil and confessing to all the lies he told and laws he broke over the years to keep that a secret. It gives the Sons no moves, nothing they can use to threaten him, so they make a desperate final attack, and Daredevil beats them gleefully. He gets disbarred, and so does Foggy, but that was always part of the plan, a necessary evil to defeat a far greater evil. In the end, at Kirsten's suggestion (because she, too, is now out of a job) the plan is to relocate to San Francisco, since the only chance they have of practicing law again is in a state where they've done so before. A new setting is a good enough reason to reboot a book's numbering, I guess, but really this is just the end of an arc. Still, Waid does a pretty good job of making it feel like a bigger, more final ending than this book has had in the past. Murdock burning his career to the ground, exposing his true identity, and deciding to move across the country are a lot of big, life-changing things to do in one issue, so there is a special flavor to this, a feeling of added importance. It may be manufactured, but it's effective. I'm glad Waid is sticking around, and extra glad Chris Samnee will still be the artist, because he does the best Daredevil ever at this point. Fun-loving, fit and trim enough for me to buy all of his superhuman acrobatics, and solid as a rock. That's a Daredevil I'll never tire of, and everything and everyone else looks just as good when Samnee's drawing them. The Waid-Samnee-Daredevil mix seems to be evergreen, so do whatever the hell you want with the numbering, I guess, Marvel. As long as the quality keeps up, I'll be reading. I'm more than invested now.

Drumhellar #4: I had actually already read a digital version of this in preparation for my recent PopMatters piece on this title. But I always like a hard copy, and I prefer to read things in that format, so I went ahead and gave this another read. It was still great. This series isn't for everyone, but I love the hell out of Riley Rossmo, and his previous series with Alex Link, Rebel Blood, is an all-time favorite of mine. Drumhellar's not quite as amazing, but it's completely its own thing, bold and bananas in ways I respect a lot. It's also very funny and it always looks so goddamn good, because Rossmo is really cutting loose on this title, playing around with every style he's ever used before and mixing them freely and perfectly. This issue has an ideal example of what I mean in the side-by-side full-page splash panels of Drum's vision of using Doc's dead body to house DJ's spirit so DJ will stop aging backwards. Rossmo brings totally different coloring, linework, and inking styles to the two pages, but then uses repeated imagery in them to show how they connect and to make their message clear. It's trippy and a little hard to decipher, but everything you need is there, which is, actually, a good description of this whole series. It moves weirdly, jumps in time and location happening without warning or transition. Rossmo and writer Alex Link trust their audience to keep up, or, as I usually do, go back and figure everything out once we know more. The opening page of this issue, for instance, actually takes place in the middle of it, chronologically speaking, but there's no way to know that until later on. So at first, you just have to soak up the washed-in-blue panels of a rat sneaking in the dark and chewing on wires. Who he is, where he is, and what he's up to will be explained eventually, as all things always are in Drumhellar if you pay attention and let yourself get swept up in the ride. A lot got resolved this time, but then at the end Drum became a werewolf, so...we'll see where this all ends up. Supposedly the first arc ends next issue, but what does that even mean in a series that moves like this? The plot about DJ only came up in issue #2 or maybe even #3, and it's already been taken care of, so I'm not sure what an "arc" really is for Drumhellar. I also don't really care, because Rossmo is my hero and this is a fabulous and impossible-to-predict comicbook I love to read.

Phew...all caught up. G'night!

Some Things That Stood Out in This Week's Comics

I got a whole bunch of new comicbooks this week, partly because nothing is being released on Christmas day so there's more earlier in the month, and partly just because it happened to be one of those weeks were a lot of stuff came out that I follow. I've written a couple of reviews of some of those issues already, but there were a handful of other more specific things that caught my eye or stuck in my mind from this week's reading, so below are the four that seemed most notable, in the order in which I read them. These aren't meant as full reviews, just some comments on the details that stood out to me.

Lazarus #5
We begin with the only negative case in the group. I'm not the world's biggest Lazarus fan, but it's a pretty solid series with a great central character, and this issue made her seem even greater through one or two key scenes. Overall, then, it was more good than bad, although there were a few pages that felt pretty wasted, most of all the whole first scene.

Whatever, the thing I really want to talk about is the inconsistency in the voice of the captions that identify the location and population of each new setting. Basically, in the world of Lazarus, there are three different classes: Family, meaning members of the five families who own all of America; Serf, meaning the middle class people who work for the families; and Waste, meaning the poor nobodys who make up most of the population but have the least power or importance in society. Every time a scene begins in a place we haven't seen before, the first panel includes a caption naming the location and breaking down how many members of each class live there. Kinda. Here's the first one from this issue:

So the "Population [Family]: 2 [1 permanent]" is there to express that while protagonist Forever lives at Compound Sequoia all the time, her father (the first speaker in the above panels) is only there for a temporary visit. Which is somewhat useful info for us to have, but it's also quickly reiterated by the dialogue. So the caption is extraneous, telling the reader something the story was already going to explain. On the other hand, there's nothing the least bit useful about "Population [Serf]: 32." That's a random number that gives only a vague sense of how big the mysterious compound might be, because only 2 of the 32 are seen in the issue. This would all be less irksome if every one of these captions had the exact same format, but they don't at all. Check these two non-consecutive examples:

The first one bothers me for several reasons. Number one, it begins with a summary of the entire population (or lack thereof) of the setting, not broken down by class, which I never remember seeing in this book before. Secondly, it fails to mention that, in addition to the 16 serfs currently deployed, Forever is there, too, meaning there's also 1 family member present. Lastly, the caption actually identifies who the 16 serfs are, which is more info than these captions pretty much ever provide. It doesn't give their names, but even calling them Dagger Team A is more than usual. And it's redundant anyway, since Forever asks for this team in the previous scene, so we already know who they are. I'm confused as to why this caption is so unlike the others, because it doesn't add anything to the scene it opens, and it totally distracted and confused me. When Forever was there without having been identified by the caption, I actually went back to the top of the page and read it again to see if I'd missed something. Why this didn't say, "Population [Family]: 1 (0 permanent)/Population [Serf]: 16 (0 permanent)" is beyond me. It would've told us everything it tells us anyway, but in a way that lined up with all the other captions of this type more logically.

The second of the two above examples bugs me pretty much because it has the opposite problem as the preceding one. It actually does point out that no family- or serf-level people are currently there, instead of just telling us the total waste-level population, which is all we actually need to know. If these captions were more reliable or uniform, then saying "Population [Waste]: 17" would've been enough. But because not mentioning one of the classes doesn't necessarily mean nobody from that class is present, and I guess Greg Rucka really wanted to drive home that it's all waste at Musselshell, we once again get too much data for no real reason.

I feel like these captions change arbitrarily based on...I don't even know what. Somebody's whims? I know it's a little silly to complain that these non-character captions don't have, like, a consistent personality, but I'd seriously prefer it if they did, dammit! I want them to be legitimately informative, helpful, what have you, rather than feeling like tacked-on stylistic flourishes that serve no practical storytelling purpose.

Unity #2
I rather enjoy Matt Kindt's approach to battle dialogue. In some ways, I guess that's a compliment for the entire issue, since pretty much all of Unity #2 is devoted to a single fight between Aric (X-O Manowar) and the rest of the cast. But I'm not going to get into all the ins and outs of what did and didn't work with that or any other scene in the comic. I just want to zero in on the way Kindt writes the in-fight smack talk as an intelligent tactical debate between the two sides of the battle. It's sort of a classic case of characters explaining what they are doing as they do it, but there's a certain aggressiveness and vocabulary Kindt gives to his characters that makes it better than usual.

It still hits a lot of the typical beats, like having Livewire explain out loud—well, technically it's telepathically, but whatever, it happens in the text is what matters—how her superpowers work and what she's using them for. But she has a real reason for it in this case because she's fighting Aric in his mind while the rest of her team battles him physically, so she needs to update her allies on her progress as a means of keeping them in the loop and encouraging them to keep up their end of the fight. Meanwhile, Aric is super cocky about the trap he's set, but the group he's fighting knows they're much smarter and more experienced than he is, so they explain with their own arrogance about how they're going to beat him. And I just love the way Kindt scripts all of that. Everyone is very logical even as they're crowing, and the very concept of barbed strategic arguments appeals to me unexpectedly. I guess because this isn't a bunch of people bragging about their powers or power levels, which is the more common thing to see in a superhero fight scene. This is slightly more elevated conversation, a heated discussion of technique and position and planning, with the ultimate point being that sheer power is never enough. Aric arguably has the most of that, even more than the others combined, but he isn't able to control it completely or use it in the best possible way, and his enemies can do that with their own abilities, so he loses definitively. It really worked for me, a minor adjustment to a genre trope that made a world of difference.

Batman Black and White #4

This is a quick one. The above panel, drawn by Kenneth Rocafort, is the best-looking Batman I've seen in a few years. And I tend to like Greg Capullo's tale on the character, not to mention Jock and Francavilla and Tomasi and so on. But Rocafort does an exceptional job all over, and that close-up image is the cream of the crop. From basic design elements like the length of the bat-ears to more subtle aspects like the blend of rigidity and mobility in the mask, it's a near-perfect rendition of the Dark Knight. Plus the look on Batman's face is a fantastic mix of curiosity, anger, and surprise. He's more expressive in this panel than many artists are able to make him in an entire issue. It's not all brooding, even when, like here, he is brooding. There's more nuance than that, because Batman is a smart and complicated dude with a lot going on in his over-active mind at any moment. You can see the mental wheels turning under the cowl in this panel. Finally, I like how Batman looks strong and intimidating without needing to do anything but look straight at me. There's no billowing cape or crouching in the shadows or any of the other theatrics the hero often employs. He's just so stern and confident and physically firm that I'm a little frightened of him when he's standing stone still in the middle of an open space.

Harbinger #19
Riley Rossmo returns for the second issue in a row to draw a few short dream sequences, and there are some stellar results. Between Rossmo's distinct style for the events in Peter's mind, and Barry Kitson's convincing made-up cartoon characters brought to life by newish character Monica, we end up with a few pages that are a bizarre mash-up of bright-and-shiny childlike visuals and grim-and-gritty horrors.

These images capture visually one of the major underlying themes of this book as a whole, the idea of superpowered kids trying to operate and fight at an adult level, but only half-succeeding at best because, like it or not, they're still children. So even though Monica's mental constructs prove quite helpful, they still stand out as ill-fitting in such a serious setting. Ditto Peter's mental world; he uses it to contact Monica so she can free him and the rest of his team, but its aesthetic is glaringly different than that of reality, displaying that Peter may not be all that down-to-Earth, despite his power level and budding leadership skills.

I also like how the total chaos of this issue's events are expressed so efficiently by having all these different art styles sharing page space. Often, having different artists on a single page, particularly when their work looks so different, is confusing or discomforting, if not downright ugly. Here, it's done sparingly and thoughtfully enough that it actively enhances the issue. And it only really happens at the beginning, and then Peter and Monica are both freed from captivity so the need for her cartoon friends and his dreamscape go away. They're well-used early on, but not held onto too tightly, intelligently abandoned once they've served their purpose.


So that's a summary of the bits and bobs that got me going this week. YAY comics!

Debutiful

For reasons that are too complicated and dull to get into here, today was my first chance in the last two weeks to visit my local comicbook store. That meant a bigger stack of new stuff than I normally get, but there was something else unusual about this particular haul: six different #1 issues from six different publishers. Seems like a statistical improbability, right? So let's quick look at each of them and see who comes out the gate strongest, and who is left limping in the back of the pack.

Batman Black and White #1 (DC): Everyone should buy this, and here's why: it's fun Batman. Black and White was a much-loved anthology series from the 90's, and DC has decided to bring it back, which is a great idea. Especially because the creators who work on the five 8-page stories in this issue take the opportunity to tell Batman tales that are lighter, less serious, and way less depressing than pretty much any of the current in-continuity Bat-Family books. They're not all straight comedy, but neither are they tragic melodrama, which is refreshing and entertaining as all get out. So let's all pick up a copy to let DC know that Batman can be a good time. I won't fully recap or even review each story here for the sake of space, but they're all good on the writing and art fronts both. They examine very different aspects of Batman's character and reality, but never really contradict or clash with one another. The best-looking and best-written was the Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy story by Maris Wcks and Joe Quinones right in the middle. Harley was of the classic yuk-yuk variety that made her a fan favorite in the first place, so that was great. And Quinones had a lot of nice tiny touches, particularly Batman's glowing eyes. Each of these tales did something better than the others, though. Chip Kidd and Michael Cho's opener was retro but original, capturing an old-school superhero feel in a brand new narrative. Neal Adam's piece was intentionally confusing and discomforting for the sake of a solid final page, and though it was a little ham-fisted, it had the most interesting thing to say, a valid point about the Bruce Wayne/Batman relationship that I agree with 100%. Howard Mackie and Chris Samnee did the last story, and get serious points for using the Ventriloquist in a way I haven't seen before, both in terms of Wesker and Scarface's roles and the way the villain relates to Batman. Coming in second overall was John Arcudi and Sean Murphy's tale of Batman fixing the Batmobile after an especially intense car chase. With the best action and ending, this is the creative team I most want to see more from, especially Batman material. So yeah, this is a winner top to bottom, not something I'm used to thinking about current Batman comics.

Brain Boy #1 (Dark Horse): While essentially a character study, this issue struck an excellent balance between introducing its main character and developing its plot. Everything we learn about Matt Price a.k.a. Brain Boy (a nickname he despises) comes from seeing him in action. Having him as the narrator is helpful, too, of course, but it's really getting to watch him utilize his various abilities in the field that makes this comic so strong. And Price's explanations of his mental skills are succinct, perhaps some of the best power description writing I've ever seen. Fred Van Lente has clearly taken his time to figure out the ins and outs of his protagonist, and it pays off throughout this debut. Price's hot-headedness, youth, arrogance, and tremendous power are all clearly and quickly displayed, so that by the time the issue comes to a close he feels familiar. He's got a good sense of humor, too, never taking himself or his work too seriously. It gets him into some trouble, but it's also his most endearing quality. For all of Van Lente's stellar work, though, Brain Boy #1's greatest strength is artist R.B. Silva. Considering how many new characters he had to design, his inventiveness is astounding, as nobody really resembles anyone else in attire or demeanor. Yet the world is still cohesive, because Silva includes enough tiny details to make it look and feel real. The way he does Price's powers is just as good—no, better—than Van Lente's descriptions of them. Each new move have its own imagery, but just like with the cast, they all fit together. Most impressive was Silva's skill at mixing the goofily comedic with the horribly grim, once again managing to make them mesh seamlessly. This book has plenty of both, and that blended tone is a big part of what makes it so good. I believe Brain Boy is an old property being revamped by this team, but if that's true I have no experience with any earlier versions, so I didn't really know what to expect. After reading this issue, my expectations for future chapters are pretty damn high, because there really wasn't a single page I disliked. It's fast-moving but easy to follow, and built around a great hero with an intimidating powerset who's already involved in some terrifying, mystifying shit. More, please.

Eternal Warrior #1 (Valiant): This turned me off on its very first page when the title character punched his daughter in the face to try and stop her from joining him on the battlefield. It never got better. The "story" of most of the issue centers on a huge fight in ancient Mesopotamia. The Eternal Warrior (Gilad Anni-Padda) and his people fight against the forces of the death god Negral, for reasons undefined. It doesn't go well for Gilad's side until Xaran, the daughter he tried to keep out of the battle with physical abuse, shows up riding an elephant and overruns the enemies. For a hot second, everyone's happy, but then Xaran decides to go a step further and trample the women and children on Negral's side. This does not sit well with her father, so they trade blows yet again, and ultimately Xaran throws a spear through his chest and the chest of her brother Mitu. Gilad survives because he's immortal (hence "Eternal Warrior") but Mitu dies, and then we jump to the modern day where Gilad is hiding out in Africa somewhere and trying to lead a life of peaceful solitude. Except, wah wah, Xaran arrives at his doorstep, announcing that she, too, is immortal, and saying she needs his help with...something. Oh, but first her presence makes Gilad's dog go insane, so Gilad has to kill it, which is just disgusting and stupid and pointless. There's SO MUCH death, animal and human, leading up to that point, throwing in a scene of a man snapping his own pet's neck was a step too far for me. I have no idea what Greg Pak is going for with this ultra-violent debut that does almost nothing to establish the characters or a plot or...anything, really. It's just fighting. The first half of the issue is a war we have no reason to care about. Then modern Gilad kills his dinner in the African wilds, there are a couple pages of reflective calm, and finally Xaran shows up and causes the dog death scene before introducing some kind of threat/conflict that I don't understand whatsoever. It's jumpy, rushed, unfocused writing that starts low and goes nowhere. Artist Trevor Hairsine doesn't help much. His work is rough and chaotic, and while that fits the madness of the opening combat, it often makes it hard to tell what's happening or who it's happening to. It's easy to mistake Gilad for either of his children, and none of them look quite the same from one page to the next. I've been really enjoying Archer & Armstrong, the series in which this character was introduced, but Eternal Warrior lacks any of that book's fun or structure. I found myself surprised it had ended because so little had been accomplished.

Kings Watch #1 (Dynamite): I expected this to be the best of the batch, and while Brain Boy gave it a run for it's money, Kings Watch takes the cake when it comes to these six #1 issues. And it is Kings Watch, not King's Watch, even though in the actual story people reference the "King's Watch." I double checked the inside cover where the copyright information is, and I know it makes no sense because it makes it look like the telling is telling a bunch of kings to watch it, or announcing that they do, but what can I tell you? It's Kings Watch for sure. And it's amazing. Jeff Parker not only gives us his versions of main characters The Phantom, Mandrake, and Flash Gordon, but also what is already a surprisingly large supporting cast. There's an incredible fight scene (see below), the beginnings of an impending apocalyptic danger, the expected handful of jokes from Parker, and some stunningly efficient characterization. Each new member of the cast has an immediate presence, and Parker shows us who they are through the simplest actions, words, and choices. I say Parker, but of course Marc Laming deserves equal credit, for the character work especially. When Phantom, Lothar, and an elephant have an 8-page fight with a humungous humanoid dinosaur creature, the sheer awesomeness of it is all Laming. That's pretty much all we get as far as meeting the Phantom, but it's more than enough to see what kind of guy he is. Laming draws spaceships and cityscapes just as well as he does giant lizards and jungles, so it's all beautiful. Most importantly, he gives great depth to every character. For such a fantastical book, it's marvelously realistic, making everything feel a little heavier, scarier, and more believable. A great deal goes on in this issue, because Parker and Laming both pace each scene brilliantly. They jump around the globe, handle a half-dozen or so major characters, have fun, and keep the story moving constantly forward, and do it all with aplomb. This has the potential to round out 2013 as one of the best series of the year, assuming it maintains the high energy and smart structure of this first issue.

Mighty Avengers #1 (Marvel): So I broke a promise to myself and spent money on another comicbook drawn by Greg Land. With Al Ewing writing and a team including two of my favorite characters (Luke Cage and Monica Rambeau) I figured it would be worth the crummy art. And you know what? The art was better than I expected, so all in all I'd say I made the right call. Land still has a hard time making human faces look human, especially Monica, whose hair and facial structure seem to change every panel and who also looks a lot different than she ever has before. But there are some really strong layouts in this comic, and the stiffness that's usually such a pervasive part of Land's action scenes is nowhere to be found. Everyone moves fluidly and naturally, which is a major improvement over his previous work. Ewing does a pretty solid job of introducing his cast, and gives them all their own voices, outlooks, and motives. And the threat that is going to bring the team together shows up in a destructive and impressive way, so all the pieces of a decent debut are here. Theoretically working against the book is the fact that it's an Infinity tie-in, but speaking as someone who hasn't read any of Infinity, I still understood everything that happened here. Well...maybe not the super brief scene with Dr. Strange toward the end. I'm assuming that's something from the event itself, but it only really lasts for a page of this issue, and its purpose is mostly just to let the villain say some creepy-sounding but largely meaningless things, as villains are wont to do. So it pulls that off, anyway. Catching up on the current statuses of a few characters I adore and meeting a couple new ones (new to me, anyway) who I'm eager to see more of is a decent way to start off a new series. Being pleasantly surprised by an artist I usually hate ain't half bad neither. So in the end I think I'm slightly more excited for this title than I was before, which I suppose is the mark of a successful (if not exceptional) opening chapter.

Reality Check #1 (Image): A well-done, straightforward introductory issue. The main character is comicbook writer/artist Willard Penn, who narrates directly to the reader, giving us his full background in the cleanest, clearest possible way. He's struggling to get his career going, has a juvenile and somewhat cowardly approach to romance that doesn't seem to do him much good, and the defining moment in his life was the death of his older brother Timmy. The two of them were best friends, and Timmy was sort of everything Willard wanted to be—an incredible artist, good with women, confident, popular, etc. Losing his brother gave Willard a new drive when it came to creating comics, and he's let every other aspect of his life go neglected in pursuit of that dream. Lucky for him, his latest series, Dark Hour, had a wildly successful debut, so after years of hard work, Willard is finally getting what he wants. Unfortunately, he's having a hell of a time producing the next issue, feeling as if his ideas have been literally pulled out of his head. On the final page, he discovers that is exactly what's happened, when Dark Hour himself shows up in the flesh asking Willard for help. This is purely set-up, but that's all it wants to be, taking its time to lay a foundation sturdy enough to hold up whatever else is coming in future issues. Writer Glen Brunswick makes Willard a well-rounded sad sack, lonely and a little afraid of the world, but still doing his damnedest to achieve his dreams. Brunswick also includes some smart and quirky humor, with the cream of the crop being when Dark Hour's Black-Cat-esque girlfriend Demonica says, "I don't steal retail!" The more lightweight feel of this series is matched by Viktor Bogdanovic's artwork, whose lines have a softer edge. Dark Hour has a good-looking but not-too-flashy design, and his secret identity, Thomas Scott, hits just the right level of Bruce Wayne knock-off. Intentionally so, as Willard himself describes Dark Hour as "libidinal Batman" (another joke I enjoyed). Would it have been even more impressive if Brunswck and Bogdanovic had gotten past the preliminary stages of their premise? Obviously yes. But for a first issue, getting all of the pieces in place, making me care about the cast, and ending on a big reveal that will undoubtedly launch into some kind of awesome superhero adventure is more than enough. I got exactly what I wanted out of Reality Check #1, and I'm anxious to see what else this title has in store.