Were Money No Object – August 25th – Featuring The Mighty, The Crusades & Dark Entries

Columns, Top Story

There’s not much coming out this week in terms of graphic novels and trades, but I did find a few picks or recommendations.

I Might Want to Buy:

The Crusades Vol. 1 Knight HC

by Steven T. Seagle, and Kelly Jones; Image, $29.99

A while ago, I picked up the prestige format one-shot that launched Seagle and Jones’s Vertigo series about a time-displaced Viking in modern-day New York.  It was decent (read the review here), but at the time, I wasn’t enthused about tracking down the rest of the series.  Now Image is publishing them in two hardcover sets, and I’m a little more tempted.

I’ve liked Seagle’s work for years, as he has written a number of really great comics that like ‘It’s a Bird’, ‘American Virgin’, ‘Soul Kiss’, and ‘House of Secrets’.  In fact, and I’m sure I’m putting myself in a very small minority here, I even liked his Alpha Flight relaunch and his run on the X-Men.

The problem for me is Kelly Jones.  There was a period of time where I was really into his approach (around when he first drew Batman), but I find that I kind of burned myself out on him (I feel the same about Sam Kieth).  I’m not sure if, at this point, I could read a whole book of Kelly Jones’s work, even if I know that I’ll like the writing.

To decide for yourself, you can check out a preview of the book here.

I Recommend You Buy:

The Mighty Vol. 2 TPB

by Peter Tomasi, Keith Champagne, and Chris Samnee; DC, $17.99

The Mighty was one of those random, out of left field series that showed up without any kind of marketing push, and didn’t last very long (when will the Big Two realize that they need to push the smaller titles?), but was remarkably good.

The book was set in a world with only one superhuman – Alpha One – who worked tirelessly to protect the planet.  At the centre of the book was his relationship with Gabriel Cole, a man who he had rescued as a young child, and who grew up to head the organization that works with Alpha One.  Of course, things aren’t quite as they appear, and it slowly began to dawn on Cole that there was something seriously wrong with his new best ‘chum’.

I really enjoyed the way that Tomasi and Champagne wrote this book, with a strong emphasis on character development, and the art was consistently amazing.  Peter Snejbjerg drew the first volume (which was the reason why I gave the book a chance in the first place), and when he left the title, he was replaced with the equally amazing Chris Samnee.

This was a title that received very little attention when it was published, but deserves much more now that it’s been collected in trade form.

Dark Entries TPB

by Ian Rankin, Werther Dell’Edera; Vertigo, $14.99

The first of Vertigo’s crime imprint is getting re-released in softcover (along with Filthy Rich, which was more of a disappointment).  I’m not sure how this will look in softcover, as part of the appeal to me of this line is the feel of the little hardcovers with their crappy paper (it reminds me of rebound library books from my youth).

There are two things you should know before considering picking up this title.  The first is that it’s not a crime novel on any level, and the second is that it’s a John Constantine story, neither thing being apparent from the front cover.

Constantine is brought onto the set of a Big Brother-like reality show to solve a murder of a supernatural nature, and stuff gets interesting pretty quickly.  Rankin writes a decent Constantine, and I’ve liked Dell’Edera’s work since he started doing fill-in issues of the sadly short-lived Loveless, even if this title looks rushed in places.

I have no idea why this was ever considered as a candidate for a ‘crime comics’ imprint, but it’s a cool book nonetheless.  You can read my original review of the book here.

So what would you buy Were Money No Object?

Get in touch and share your thoughts on what I've written: jfulton@insidepulse.com