Happy New Year everyone! I feel like 2015 is going to be a big one!
I love when holidays fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and as a result, comics companies shift only a title or two. As it turns out, I was only going to get two comics this week, and Diamond shorted the store I shop at for one of them (X-O Manowar), so I only bought one. At the same time, I hit some pretty amazing Boxing Day sales this year, and had a lot of free time, so the smallest week of the year still manages to generate one of my longest columns. Go figure…
Best (and Only) Comic of the Week:
East of West #16 – 
Jonathan Hickman jumps us forward a little in time as he launches us into the second year of his epic tale, story wise. The Endless Nation has defeated the Republic of Texas, although the last Ranger is planning on rescuing the leader, Bel Solomon. We get a quick survey of what’s going on with the other factions who are hoping to work with the Endless Nation, and where the various Horsemen are. Each issue of this series has worked as a part of a much larger tapestry, and now it seems that Hickman has stopped expanding the story, and is instead looking at how the different threads are going to interact or collide. Nick Dragotta’s art on this series has been incredible, and just keeps getting better. This is one of the most interesting comics series I’ve read in a long time.
Comics I Would Have Bought if Comics Weren’t So Expensive:
All-New Miracleman Annual #1
Batman Eternal #39
SHIELD #1
Bargain Comics:
All-New X-Factor #12-16 – It took twelve issues, but this series finally began to click when Peter David had Serval Industries introduce the team in a press-conference, which got interrupted by a bad 90s villain whom Quicksilver had wronged. It’s the first time that David started focusing on the characters on this team, rather than just using their personalities for comic relief, and it is a trend that continued up to the Axis tie-in issues. Pietro starts dealing with some of the horrible things he’s done over the years, Lorna grows in confidence as the leader of the team, and Danger starts to experiment with her sexuality (okay, that’s mainly comic relief, but it’s pretty funny). These Axis tie-in issues don’t deal with the weird Maximoff family retcon, thankfully, and so remain pretty decent. I like Carmine Di Giandomenico’s art, but enjoyed Pop Mhan’s two issues more, as I felt he better fits the feeling that David is going for with this series.
Amazing Spider-Man #5-11 – You really have to hand it to Dan Slott, the man can run an event. These issues cover the end of the Original Sin tie-ins that introduced Silk, through the set-up and first half of Spider-Verse. Like the Spider-Island event of a few years ago, Spider-Verse is tightly controlled, and really very good. Having never read any of JMS’s run, I don’t get all this spider-totem, Other crap, but the scope of the story, which has every Spider-Everything being hunted across the multiverse, feels pretty momentous. It’s also a kick to see our Peter interact with Spidey-Ock. It’s also always good to see Miles Morales, and the appearance of Peter Porker, the Spider-Ham is a lot of fun. I don’t know why Madame Web is not front and centre in a story like this, but she’s annoying, so I don’t mind. Olivier Coipel does a great job of differentiating a bunch of people all wearing the same basic costumes. Good stuff.
Axis: Hobgoblin #1-3 – This was a fun mini-series that looks at the time between Roderick Kingsley’s ‘inversion’ and when he goes off to fight alongside the Avengers. Being Roderick Kingsley, he throws himself into heroism by writing books, running seminars, and outfitting wannabe heroes with the names of D-list heroes (like D-Man!). The art on this series is by Javier Rodriguez, which is the main reason why I wanted to read it. The story is fine, and I applaud writer Kevin Shinick for not including a Spider-Man guest appearance, although the fight with the new Goblin King, Phil Urich, felt a little too soon after the Goblins got beaten in Spidey’s book. I’m generally bored of Goblins.
Batman Eternal #1-3 – I had always intended to read this series when it got collected one day, but Boxing Day meant that I now have the first thirty-six issues, all for only about $40, and am going to chip away at that pile by reading an issue a day. The various writers (and editors) shaping this story start off well, with James Gordon taken out of the picture in a clear set-up, as an old Bat-enemy makes moves to take over the town. Worse, he has the mayor and new interim commissioner in his pocket. I like Bat-stories that have scope, and this appears to have that in spades, with various subplots being set up over these three issues. There are some things I had trouble accepting, like how, after a subway crash, everyone just stands around arresting Gordon instead of searching for survivors, but this has my attention in a way I haven’t felt for any Bat-book since Damian Wayne was killed.
Black Widow #10-13 – Of all of Nathan Edmondson’s books at Marvel, I think that Black Widow is the one that is clicking with me the least. I like the way he’s managing the character, and I love Phil Noto’s art (especially in issue 13, with its autumn trees everywhere), but the story is just a little too decompressed and slow moving for me. It reads much better in chunks of four or five chapters (or, I guess, the trade, which is clearly what Edmondson is writing for).
Captain Marvel #9 – I have to give Kelly Sue DeConnick points for bringing Lila Cheney back, but this story, about Lila’s involvement in an unwanted arranged marriage, is pretty silly, even before everyone is forced to speak in rhyme like a bad issue of The Demon. This book is frequently good, but just as often, misdirected.
Deadpool #36-38 – It must be kind of frustrating to write Deadpool, as Marvel editorial clearly insists that the character must get in the middle of every event going (or, randomly get married when it’s time to boost sales). Still, Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn make the best of it, giving us a richer view of DP’s ‘inverted’ period. My problem with this is that Deadpool’s not really evil, and so he doesn’t become entirely good; instead, his usual love of violence is inverted to a peaceful state of hippy-ism, so pronounced that he can’t even bring himself to carve the turkey at Thanksgiving. There are some good moments in here, and I love the cover to issue 38, which has the North Korean X-Men reprising a famous JRJR cover from the 80s.
Death of Wolverine #3&4 – Well, it’s definitely not how I would have ever pictured Logan going out, as Charles Soule manages this most commercial of editorially mandated comics pretty well, while still having very little space to kill off one of the most major of Marvel characters. Seeing Doctor Cornelius having a role to play in this series, I had to wonder why they never got Barry Windsor-Smith to at least draw a variant cover for the last issue…
Death of Wolverine: Deadpool & Captain America #1 – Gerry Duggan does a great job with this unlikely team-up comic, that has Deadpool and the aged Steve Rogers tracking down a knife covered in Logan’s blood, in an attempt to stop AIM from being able to clone their dead friend. (Of course, that never seemed to be much of a concern before Logan died, when he left buckets of blood behind in almost every comic he’s ever been in). This was a fun read, and I didn’t hate Scott Kolins’s art, which is rare for me.
Death of Wolverine: Life After Logan #1 – It makes sense that Marvel would publish a tribute issue to one of their all-time most popular characters, as well as numerous follow-up series. What’s strange is that nowhere in here do they tap any of the ‘classic’ Wolverine writers to do anything. I feel like this comic should have had, at the least, stories by Chris Claremont (a Marvel exclusive writer) and Larry Hama, or at the least, Jason Aaron. The three stories are nice, even if, beyond Joshua Hale Fialkov, they are by writers I’ve never heard of (Jeff Loveness and Rex Ogle). Cyclops pays tribute to Logan by getting in a bar fight. Colossus and Nightcrawler do the same, only it’s with Japanese techno-ninjas. Armor fights all of Logan’s main foes, but that’s in the Danger Room. Javier Pulido’s cover had me hopeful that the inside art would be by him, or by artists who share his style, but oh well.
Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #1-6 – I didn’t have a clue what to expect going into this weird exploration of the characters most related to Wolverine. The framing sequence sets up a situation where all these characters, X-23, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Daken, and Mystique, have to talk about their recent run ins with Logan’s ‘legacy’. Laura’s issue, written by Tim Seeley, is the best of the bunch, as she deals with her grief-induced anger, and runs into the new Canadian hero Chinook, who is actually Windshear (!!!!). Seeley even paraphrases a Dessa song, which is the easiest way to earn my respect. Some of the other issues work better than others, as Marvel tries out a bunch of writers more often associated with DC (Kyle Higgins, Marguerite Bennett, Ray Fawkes, and James Tynion IV) and a bunch of artists that are new to me (Nome, Kristantina, Marks, and Bonetti). It’s clear that this series exists just to put together the upcoming Wolverines comic, but it works, because it has me interested. Clearly, this series takes place before Sabretooth was ‘inverted.’ I wonder how that’s going to be handled in Wolverines…
Guardians of the Galaxy #20-22 – Writer Brian Michael Bendis uses these three issues to finish off the Original Sin tie-in (which wasn’t), finishing the story of how Peter Quill, Drax, and Thanos survived the Cancer-verse but Richard Rider didn’t, and then launches a new story that pits the team against the Venom symbiote, as it tries to take them over one by one. These are much better issues of GotG than I’m used to, as Bendis packs a little more story into them, and looks to maybe have some bigger plotlines in the works (such as the notion of having Quill run for the new leader of Spartax). The art by Valerio Schiti is terrific, although I’m noticing that Quill is looking more and more like the movie version of the character now, with even his blonde hair darkening a little. This is all weird to me, considering that Quill wasn’t blonde until the Bendis series launched.
Guardians of the Galaxy Annual #1 – Frank Cho joins Bendis for this fun Annual, which has a SHIELD Helicarrier show up in space, complete with Nick Fury, the Countessa, Dum Dum, and a few other agents, who are involved in a long-standing fight with some Skrulls. Cho’s comics always look good, so that alone is reason to buy this one. It’s fun, although the Guardians give most of the limelight to Captain Marvel for this issue.
Guardians 3000 #2 – I didn’t love the first issue, but I was curious to see where Dan Abnett was going to take this series. His story, which has the futuristic team fighting the Badoon and trying to figure out some kind of time loop thing, is interesting, but this book is really being hampered by Gerardo Sandoval’s art. He’s doing a 90s revival thing, and everyone is all big, blocky, grimacy, and dynamic, to the point that the storytelling is hard to follow. Also, I’ve always seen Vance Astrovik as a slight character, which gives his tk powers more visual force, but in this book, he’s almost the same size as Charlie-27. I’d like to keep reading this title, as I was a huge fan of Jim Valentino’s classic run with these characters, but the art is too off-putting. I stopped reading every comic that looked like this in the 90s for a reason.
Nova #22-25 – These four issues take Sam from Hallowe’en through his Axis tie-in fight with Kluh, to his joining the Avengers. I’ve always felt that this series has had a lot of potential, and now that Gerry Duggan has gotten such a good handle on Sam, it’s beginning to live up to it. I like how Duggan explores actual consequences of being a superhero, as Sam suffers a concussion and is basically grounded.
Original Sin #5.3-5.5 – Al Ewing and Jason Aaron took a little too long in getting to the point of this mini-series within a mini-series, as it is not until the last issue that Thor, Angela, and (possibly?) Loki learn about their familial connections. This was not the most memorable story, although it’s kind of made me more interested in the Angela on-going series…
Punisher #12&13 – I think it might be time to add Punisher to my pull-file list. I’ve liked the work that Nathan Edmondson and Mitch Gerads were doing on this title, but now it feels like something has really clicked. The Dos Sols gang is setting about completely trashing Los Angeles, but the Howling Commandos have taken Frank’s last remaining relatives prisoner as a way of luring him out. The second of these two issues fills in some backstory on the Commandos, but it reads more like an issue of Edmondson’s The Activty (Moritat draws this issue instead of Gerads, or it really would have felt like the other comic). Edmondson gets how to write the Punisher, and his fetishistic fixation on weapons and gear suits this book.
Savage Hulk #5&6 – Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman make up one of my current favourite comics partnerships, so I was pleased to see that they did a two-issue arc on Savage Hulk. Hardman’s run on the (Red) Hulk series was the only time I’ve ever liked that character, so I thought it would be cool to see him work on this. It’s a story set back in the ‘Crossroads’ days (after Incredible Hulk #300), and it’s really more of a Doctor Strange story that the Hulk figures in. It’s well done, and worth seeking out.
Storm #4-6 – When this series started, I remember commenting on how writer Greg Pak, who is a very good writer, didn’t do enough to establish a reason for Storm to have her own book. Six issues in, I feel much the same. Mourning for Wolverine, Storm heads to Vegas to help out their old friend Yukio, who now runs some clan-based criminal empire, a quarter of which is made up of folks from the Breakworld. Not surprisingly, Storm is not happy about this. The stories are fine, but don’t really need to be there. I wish, in its rush to expand, Marvel spent a little more time planning out their new series.
Superior Iron Man #1 – Were we not shown that Tony was drinking, which I think Pepper doesn’t react to strongly enough, there’s not a whole lot that shows that Tony has stayed ‘inverted’. He’s just as egotistical as ever, although much more money hungry. I don’t really understand how Extremis can be delivered via cell phone app, nor does it make sense to charge $100 a day for its services, but I’m guessing that this aspect of the story won’t be around for long. It’s weird that She-Hulk is in San Francisco, isn’t it? A lot of little things like that go unexplained here.
Superior Spider-Man #33 – Dan Slott and Christos Gage do a good job of setting up the Spider-Verse event in this issue, as we get a little more information on the guy who is hunting down Spider-Heroes across the multiverse. This issue reminds me of just how much I miss Spidey-Ock…
X-Force #10-12 – I was starting to enjoy Simon Spurrier’s X-Force a little more with the last two issues, but things snap back pretty quickly to being way too grim’n’gritty with these comics. Issue ten features the return of the X-Man that Spurrier created for Legacy #200 (I think that was the number), which is a mutant who everyone forgets the minute they don’t see him. It was amusing, but from there, things get a little ridiculous, as the team goes after the guy who’s been watching them, and end up all turning on each other in an orgy of violence and hard-to-follow artwork. I’m not surprised that this title is not sticking around…
X-Men #21&22 – Marc Guggenheim’s arc on X-Men, which ends with these two issues, was good in that it used characters like Abigail Brand and Cecilia Reyes, not to mention Deathbird, none of whom get seen all that often, but in all other respects, it was kind of bland. Space battles, genetically modified aliens, Rachel hating the Shi’ar; it’s all been done before. I look forward to G. Willow Wilson taking over this book with the next issue; her writing has yet to disappoint me, and I think she should have an interesting approach to some of these characters, like Monet in particular.
The Week in Manga:
Mail Vol. 3 – This final volume in this manga series finally addresses my main complaint about Housui Yamazaki’s creepy stories about a detective who exorcises ghosts with his magic pistol. Akiba, our hero, finally gets a bit of a back story and a friend, as we learn about a pact he made as a child, and the consequences it had for a particular spirit. This volume is creepier than the others, with stories about dead babies, and dead stalkers. It’s easily the best in the series so far, which makes it unfortunate that it was also the last.
20th Century Boys Vol. 21 – With only one volume left in the series (and two more in the follow-up 21st Century Boys), I’m torn between binge-reading the remaining books, or making them last a while longer. Naoki Urasawa is telling one of the most involved stories I’ve ever read in comics, and as I get closer to the end, I’m able to just sit back and marvel at how well-executed this story has been. Even some of the weird story elements (like the bowling subplot) have a place. Brilliant stuff.
The Week in Graphic Novels:
Hawken: Genesis
Miles Williams, Khang Le, and Jeremy BarlowArt by Fracisco Ruiz Velasco, Alex Sanchez, Kody Chamberlain, Sid Kotian, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bagus Hutomo, Michael Gaydos, Federico Dallocchio, Nathan Fox, and Christopher Moeller
I don’t play video games, and have no knowledge of Hawken outside of those two comics, but Hawken: Genesis caught my eye because of the lovely design work by Archaia, and because of the list of artists associated with the project. It explains why the planet of Illal, a resource-rich colony planet controlled by various corporations, has become a blasted war zone, infected by a nano-virus that is taking over the surface.
The writers of this book focus the story around two men, Rion Lazlo, a ruthless corporate spy with unbridled ambition, and James Hawken, a brilliant scientist responsible for the best and worst advancements on the planet. When the book opens, Hawkens is toiling away in obscurity for Sentium, one of the two big corporations that run everything on the planet. Lazlo has defected to Prosk, Sentium’s rival, and he manages to bring his friend over.
Eventually, Hawken develops the technology that allows for lightweight and fast mech devices, which are of course, immediately put into warfare. As relations between the two corporations worsen, and as resource scarcity makes war more profitable, things just keep getting worse on Illal, although the depth of the problems take a while to be revealed.
This book follows these two characters over a few decades, setting up what I assume is the environment and rationale for the game to exist in. The writers do a good job of covering the human and business reasons, and make good use of text pages to fill in some backstory.
The big draw to this book is the art, which is provided by comics artists as well as game design types. Each chapter and interlude has been drawn or painted by somebody different, although there is decent visual stability throughout the book. This was an impressive project, and I hope it’s something that Archaia revisits.
Not My Bag
Needing to pay off some car repairs, Grace took a job at a prominent department store, becoming their ‘Eileen Fisher specialist’, and selling a line usually associated with older and larger women. At first, Grace dives into the job with enthusiasm, but as he starts to see how the place works, and how the people above him manipulate their workers, he goes from enjoying his job to having attacks of paranoia and anxiety.
Grace fills this book with the types of insights you would expect from an intelligent and observant person in his position. He talks about his sharkish co-workers, who are desperate for commissions, as well as his disdain for his own Persian-American community (interestingly, the only time that ethnicity enters the book).
Throughout the book, Grace also shows his own mental state during this time. We see how the ghosts of former failed or unrealized relationships make it difficult to get closer to ‘The Lawyer’, his current love interest. He drops hints about how his comics career is growing at this time as well, although not quickly enough to outpace his growing love of purchasing higher-end fashion items for himself.
Grace is a smart cartoonist. I especially like the way he refrains from showing the face of Frankie, his manager. She is always shown as wearing different masks, most notably a Guy Fawkes/V For Vendetta one when she is at her angriest.
This book made me appreciate how comparatively simple my own forays into retail were, although I think anyone who’s worked in the industry at any level would recognize the way the system treats the people at the bottom of the totem pole.
