Best Comic of the Week:
Defenders #1 – Al Ewing can do no wrong with me, so I was excited to see him revive the Defenders name, with a quirky lineup, for this miniseries. It relies on stuff that happened in Marvel Comics #1000, which I never read, and is therefore a little confusing, but Ewing writes a good Doctor Strange, and the setup, with his hastily assembled and somewhat unwilling team, is interesting. I also love Javier Rodríguez’s art and layouts. This is shaping up to be a very enjoyable book. I never thought I’d see Cloud come back…
Quick Takes:
Daredevil #33 – Matt Murdock barely appears in this issue, but that doesn’t mean he’s not busy, as he takes over the prison he’s been incarcerated in, while Elektra is left to face the multiple Bullseyes who have been holding the city hostage for days. This is a solid issue, as Chip Zdarsky advances his long-running story and checks in on a number of characters and plotlines.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #29 – With the Clone Saga wrapped up, Miles has some time to deal with his life, school, and trying to help Shift. It’s in issues like this that we see the payoff for a lot of Saladin Ahmed’s slower moving plotlines. We even get to check in with Kenneth, the kid who Miles helped earlier, who has a new uniform for him. I like Chris Allen, the new artist on this book (I have no idea if he’s here for a while or what). The book looks really good.
Rorschach #11 – Tom King excels at building up complicated puzzle box stories. This issue has the main character, whose name I can never remember, finally figuring out who is behind the assassination attempt on Turley, the guy who is running for President, but this knowledge appears to be fracturing his mind a little. This title has always held my interest, and I’ve always appreciated the formalism of it.
The Silver Coin #5 – Michael Walsh, series creator and artist, wrote as well as drew this issue, which shares with us the origin of the silver coin. The story is set in the era of the Salem witch trials, and is generally pretty creepy. I’ve enjoyed this book, which follows this cursed coin through different eras, in stories written by different writers. I am happy to see that this book will be returning with a new raft of writers, from a newer generation. It’s a very cool approach to a comics series, and I’d like to see more books like this.
The Swamp Thing #6 – The inclusion of the Suicide Squad in this book is what drove me to catch up on it (see below) and get this issue, which came out last week. Peacemaker is leading a Squad (with more established characters than the one in the regular SS title) to retrieve the new Swamp Thing, acting on Amanda Waller’s orders, while Levi continues to explore his memories and figure out his place in the world. Mike Perkins’s art is so nice on this book. I wish he was drawing the regular Squad book too…
Teen Titans Academy #5 – I’m late getting this issue, but it was worth the wait. We get the origin of the Bat Pack this month, and learn why Nightwing sponsored their enrollment at the Academy. They learn the identity of Red X, but we still don’t know it. This issue and the one before were drawn by Steve Lieber, and it reminds me how much I miss his work. I’ve really grown to like this title.
The Unbelievable Unteens #1 – Jeff Lemire and Tyler Crook return to the world of Black Hammer, for this story about Jane Ito, a comics writer and artist who chronicles the adventures of the Unteens, a young superhero group. What Jane doesn’t realize, though, is that she actually was a member of this team, a truth she is forced to confront when she is visited by the ghost of one of her teammates. Crook’s art is always welcome, and Lemire has another unique story to tell in his superhero universe. Black Hammer books are always good, and this is shaping up quite well.
X-Force #22 – I like this new Man-Slaughter character, a weaponized version of Man-Thing, but I think it’s a little tiresome just how much time is spent in this series having the team face down plant-based threats. It’s beginning to feel a little one note.
Free Comic Book Day:
I almost missed out on FCBD this year, because I totally forgot that it was happening, but then found out the night before. It was very different this year, with fewer comic stores in the downtown core, and no one holding big sales or turning it into an event (there was a big one the next city over, but I’m trying to stay more or less close to home still). I did get the main titles though, and once again, it’s a case of ever-diminishing returns, as the day is more about giving out five or six page testers for stuff that’s about to be published. There is nothing that stands on its own, which is disappointing, and has to work against its purpose in terms of bringing in new fans.
Batman Special Edition (FCBD) #1 – I haven’t read a Batman comic since the end of Tom King’s run, having sat out on James Tynion’s work over the last couple of years. This introduces the upcoming Fear State storyline, which feels pretty familiar. It also has some of the I Am Batman comic that has already been published, featuring Jace Fox becoming a new Batman? I don’t really know what’s going on there, and this didn’t do much to draw me in.
Black Mask, Free Comic Book Day 2021 – I was surprised to see Black Mask contribute something this year, given how few books they’ve been publishing lately. The Black preview is, I believe, from the series that came out a while ago, but like when I read the original series, I wasn’t always clear on who was who. The Calexit story appeared to be a prequel to the original, and I greeted the news that Volume 2 is “coming soon” with the appropriate amount of scepticism. There’s a few pages previewing the Emmie-X Calexit series that was solicited for December of 2018, and still hasn’t been published. I like Matt Pizzolo’s comics, when they actually come out, but am not going to believe he writes anything, as opposed to just announcing things, until I see it on the stands.
Enter the House of Slaughter: Free Comic Book Day 2021 – I haven’t been reading James Tynion’s Something is Killing The Children, and I’ve always thought that was a mistake. Tynion’s last big book at Boom, The Woods, was terrific, but this flew under my radar until it was a bit too late to get caught up. Anyway, it looks like that title is getting a spin-off, Enter the House of Slaughter, soon, and it also looks very good. There’s a secret order that deals with killing monsters, and has some internal strife when its agent doesn’t do her job exactly as she’s supposed to. I got drawn into this one.
Free Comic Book Day 2021: All Ages (The Legend of Korra/Avatar The Last Airbender) – One of my favourite things about the first lockdown was that it gave me the chance to finally get around to watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, after a solid decade of being told I should be many people. I loved it, and have since watched the first two seasons of The Legend of Korra (I don’t understand why Canadian Netflix doesn’t have all of it). This is the first time I’ve read any of Dark Horse’s Avatar comics, aside from a story I didn’t understand in another FCBD offering a few years ago. They’re cute. I loved seeing Iroh again.
Free Comic Book Day 2021: Avengers/Hulk #1 – Once again, Marvel’s offerings are lacklustre. The first half of the comic is given over to the Avengers, promoting the story starting in issue #50. Jason Aaron has a multiversal group of Deathloks investigating timeline anomalies or something, and there are some alternate versions of familiar villains teaming up to form a new Masters of Evil. It was a little dull. The back half of the book previews the upcoming Donny Cates/Ryan Ottley Hulk run, which I guess is set to come after Immortal Hulk ends in the fall. Cates is going for a very different tone from Al Ewing’s excellent, horrific Hulk, and it seems like a bit of a shame. I’ve loved what Ewing has done with the character, but this more mainstream version, which has Hulk prepping a trip to space, didn’t do it for me.
Free Comic Book Day 2021: Spider-Man/Venom #1 – And again, we get a quick proof of concept for Zeb Wells’s upcoming Spider-Man run, which I guess has Ben Reilly working for a company. It seems interesting, but I don’t see myself getting it. I was interested in Al Ewing and Ram V writing the upcoming Venom series, with art by Bryan Hitch, but this didn’t do much for me either. These comics would work so much better with an actual story that ends.
Red Room: Free Comic Book Day 2021 – I like Ed Piskor’s work a lot, but this series became a victim of curbside pickup shopping, because I’d meant to flip through the first issue, and then didn’t even get to see it. Anyway, this FCBD offering does give me an idea of the general aesthetic of this series, which appears to be about murders broadcast over the darkweb, and some other stuff. It’s clear that Piskor is putting his all into this book, but I don’t know if I can handle the subject matter these days. It’s just a bit too dark…
Suicide Squad Special Edition (FCBD) #1 – I thought that the King Shark story in this might be self-contained, but apparently there’s more to come. Weirdly, nowhere in this book tells me where this story, which has King Shark visiting his father, is continued. That seems to defeat the purpose of this story. The second story is the first bunch of pages of the new Black Label book, Suicide Squad: Get Joker by Brian Azzarello and Alex Maleev. I like that creative team a lot, but I wasn’t all that engaged by this. At least it’s clear where the story continues (in a book that’s already on the stands).
Comics I Would Have Bought if Comics Weren’t So Expensive:
Fantastic Four: Life Story #3
Infinite Frontier #4
Bargain Comics:
Future State: Swamp Thing #1&2 – I’ve been hearing good things about Ram V’s Swamp Thing, so figured it was time to check it out. These Future State miniseries are too short, but this one does tell an interesting story about a future where Swamp Thing has created a human-like plant creature to help him search for any surviving humans in a world largely absent of them. Mike Perkins’s art is very nice, but there is a predictability to everything here.
The Swamp Thing #1-5 – It was a good week to catch up on this book, which is pretty interesting. I love Mike Perkins’s art, and he does a fantastic job of catching the serious tone of this title. There’s a new, reluctant Swamp Thing, and he’s working out his father issues while also getting used to his new role in the world. I’m impressed with Ram V’s writing here.
In Memoriam:
Steve “Zumbi” Gaines – This week we lost another terrific MC, Zumbi, of the hiphop group Zion I. I first came across Zion I’s work in the early 2000s, when I was living and breathing the sounds of underground rap. Zion I were from Oakland, and represented the conscious and relevant styles that were coming out of the Bay Area. I loved their album True & Livin’, and gave it a lot of play. I also vividly remember being a little too excited when I heard one of their songs from Heroes In the City of Dope, their collaboration with The Grouch from Living Legends, in an episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter I was watching one night while trying to manage some insomnia. I had tickets to see Zumbi, who I think was just going by Zion at the time, after Amp Live left the group, but ended up with a conflict that night and went to another show instead. Now I regret that. We are losing way too many talented artists from an era of people who are just a little bit older than I am, and it’s terrifying. There have been tons of tributes to Zumbi pouring out this week, and it’s been nice to see some of the stories and videos that have been shared, but I really wish that hadn’t been necessary.
The Week in Music:
Joy Oladokun – In Defense of My Own Happiness – This is off the beaten path for me, but I love Joy Oladokun’s voice and songwriting. These songs mostly fall into the folk category, but with a very expansive definition of that word. This is a very long album, at 24 tracks, but there are only a few songs on here that I wouldn’t have included. Her work is positive and lovely, and I feel like she’s an artist to keep an eye on.
